By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Chief Dave Koepke and the Bucyrus Police Department will be standing in solidarity for their fellow boys in blue this week.
Koepke made an announcement during Tuesday night’s Bucyrus City Council meeting that the department will be wearing mourning bands across their badges this week to honor Danville officer Thomas Cottrell, who was found dead behind a municipal building in Knox County with his gun and cruiser missing Monday.
“The acts in Danville over the weekend have left me speechless,” Koepke said. “The badge I’m wearing tonight represents all of you, represents all the citizens of Bucyrus. Officer Cottrell of Danville represented the citizens there. An attack on him – a senseless act of violence – was an attack on that community.”
Council president Sis Love added the crime was a shock. “Our prayers do go out to his family.”
Law Director Rob Ratliff noted that he spoke to the chief earlier that night about the incident in Knox County.
“The incident in Danville is part of an alarming trend,” Ratliff said. “There’s been a 25 percent increase, roughly, in police officer killings. That doesn’t even begin to indicate the other acts of violence and things that have been perpetrated against police officers. It’s part of a national trend of increasing violent crimes in the United States that’s coupled with the recent release of some 20,000 federal prison inmates early. This is an alarming trend and is something that as a community we really have to show our support for police, fire. We can’t keep allowing these things to happen.”