Ohio police officer defends own life during home invasion

According to the Akron Beacon-Journal, a woman who works as a Kent police officer shot her intoxicated, violent ex-boyfriend when he broke into her home in the early morning hours of Thursday, March 19 - her 30th birthday - and began attacking her.

From the article:

Police say [Adam] Jovicic, who served as a medic with the Ohio Army National Guard since 2006, was intoxicated and high on an undisclosed drug when he forced his way through the front door. A report shows [Sarah] Berkey was beaten unconscious at some point, but otherwise suffered minor physical injuries.

It does not appear that Jovicic was armed when he broke inside. Police, however, would not identify the gun used in the shooting. The gun was recovered from inside Berkey’s home.

Jovicic, a Stow-Munroe Falls High School graduate and avid weightlifter, worked as a corrections officer for the Summit County Juvenile Detention Center for about two years before resigning Feb. 21.

According to the article, the officer's use of her cell phone to call to 911 resulted in a delay in response time of several minutes.

In the recording, she can be heard screaming and crying in the background while Jovicic confronts her.

Meanwhile, the call from her cellphone was initially sent to Stow police dispatchers, who relayed the call to Munroe Falls dispatchers. Because the call came from a cellphone and not a land line, dispatchers had no coordinating address to relay to officers.

Officers were only able to obtain a general location of the call and not a specific address so the response was delayed by several minutes, Larson said.

The 911 call shows it took about four minutes and 40 seconds before Berkey was able to pick up her cellphone and speak to the dispatcher. By this time, Jovicic was shot and officers, who heard the two gunshots while in the driveway, made it inside the home.

“My God, he came over, he broke in and he was beating me up and I shot him,” Berkey said in her call as officers arrived.

Larson said officers typically respond to addresses within one minute in 78 percent of the city’s 911 calls.

It appears that a faster response by police may have prevented the shooting. Larson said the lack of an address “did not help.”

“That’s why we want to have people understand when you call 911 on a cellphone, it doesn’t necessarily go to the right dispatcher,” he said.

Munroe Falls Mayor Frank Larson says does not appear that Berkey will be charged. Larson is quoted as saying Berkey “did what she had to do.”

“Everybody has a right to defend themselves,” he said. “Nobody has the right to attack another person.”

Under Ohio's Castle Doctrine law, if someone unlawfully enters or attempts to enter an occupied home or temporary habitation, or occupied car, citizens have an initial presumption that they may act in self defense, and will not be second-guessed by the State.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.