Family, Friends Remember Sgt. Jeff Shaw 10 Years After His Death In The Line Of Duty
November 12, 2019 at 2:56 a.m.
By Amanda [email protected]
Today is the 10-year anniversary of when Kosciusko County Sheriff’s deputy Jeffery Shaw was killed in the line of duty after being hit by a pickup truck on Ind. 14 while he was on patrol. Shaw was 40 years old and left behind his wife, Angie, and their two children, Nickolas and Isabella, who were 9 and 7 at the time, respectively.
“Ten years down the road, this day just always sucks,” Angie said. “It’s easier, but Nov. 12 will just always be a bad, bad, bad day.”
Angie remembers when she got the phone call 10 years ago and how police officers picked her up from work, then stopped to pick up the chaplain before heading to the hospital in Fort Wayne.
“We were on (U.S.) 30 and the deputy I was with pulled to the side of the road, and I said, ‘No, keep going keep going keep going,’ and my brother was behind us in his police car, and the police officer that was driving and my brother were out talking along the road, and when my brother came up to the car, he told me along 30 that he had passed,” Angie said. She was then taken to Kosciusko Community Hospital.
Nickolas also remembers that day and he and his sister being taken to the hospital by a family friend.
“I asked where we were going and they said the hospital but wouldn’t say why. Me and Bella started whispering in the back that maybe mom was pregnant and had a baby, that was our best guess,” he said of the time. “When we got to the hospital, I remember seeing all the cop cars, but I didn’t see dad’s. When you ride in the same cop car almost daily it’s very easy to tell them apart, even for a 9 year old.”
He recalls seeing his mom and her taking them into a room and telling them their dad was in a bad car accident and didn’t make it.
“I remember feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach and I couldn’t talk. She took us in emergency room number 1, a room I will never step foot in again. We walked in and there was dad laying on a metal bed. I can remember touching his skin, but the only thing that touched me back was coldness, and that scared me. When I went to give him a kiss on the forehead, I can only remember the blood that I saw in his ear and then quickly trying to act like I hadn’t seen it. I told him that I loved him with all my heart,” Nickolas said of the time.
Jeff began his law enforcement career in July 1994 when he was hired as a jail officer in the work release department. Four years later in July 1998, he was hired as a merit deputy.
KCSO 1st Sgt. Chris McKeand worked with Jeff when he started in the jail in 1995 and recalls his friendship with him.
“He was one of my best friends, a hard worker, loyal to the community, loyal to the county and a good family man and a good father,” McKeand said. “He was just a good guy, a fun-loving person.”
Kosciusko County Coroner Tony Ciriello was Jeff’s field training officer for six weeks when he moved out of the jail division.
“Jeff was a good guy,” Ciriello said. “He was even-tempered, willing to listen to both sides of every incident and his decision seemed to be pretty sound on how to follow up.”
When Jeff was killed, Ciriello was working with the Syracuse Police Department and with the coroner’s office and his job was to work with the Shaw family.
“It was horrific,” Ciriello said. “It was somebody I helped train be a police officer, and I’m the one that had to spend the time with the family explaining what was going on and how things were going to proceed from there. It was terrible. But, today marks the 10-year anniversary and that’s pretty important.”
Sgt. Chris Francis said, “November 12, 2009, was the worst shift of my career. It's a travesty when you respond to any traumatic event; but responding to one of your own is indescribable. I will honor Jeff by spending time with my kids, because that's where his priorities were. Not a day goes by that Jeff isn't on my mind. As the youngest on the shift, he took me under his wing. He had the most important quality of a leadership position, he truly cared and the job wasn't about himself.”
The support from those colleagues and friends didn’t stop when Jeff died, Angie said. Those men became mentors to her children and family to them.
“Until this day, there is a handful of guys that Jeff worked with who I could call anytime day or night and they would be right here,” she said. “They give us so much support. In fact, one of the police officers contacted me a couple weeks ago and wanted to know if it would be OK if all the old gang got back together at our house this coming Saturday to do a friends’ Thanksgiving.”
Angie said her kids love it. She said then-sheriff Rocky Goshert would invite her family to every sheriff’s department event.
“Once you’re a police officer, they always say you’ve got all of these brothers, and Rocky invited us and the kids to anything they had, whether a baseball game, Christmas stuff, all the time we were always invited. It felt like Jeff wasn’t really gone, it was like he was just on duty. To this day, he (Goshert) is still there,” she said.
“Chris McKeand has really mentored Nickolas a lot and helped with a lot of the stuff that I just don’t know what to do. When a police officer gets killed in a line of duty, the kids automatically get their college paid for, so I didn’t have a clue where to start with that, and Chris has just been there through everything.”
Nickolas said the guys have been like a father figure to him.
“That meant more to me than I think they could ever know. They were at my (high school) graduation, and that meant a lot too,” he said.
Isabella is a junior at Warsaw Community High School and said she thinks of her dad every day.
“He was just a good guy. He really knew how to take care of everything. He always knew what to do,” she said. She said her dad’s former colleagues have been special.
“They’ve always been really protective of us and they’re always making sure we have everything we need,” she said.
Nickolas is a sophomore at Purdue University Fort Wayne and wants to be a police officer.
“I just feel like it’s a calling, and I like to help people and obviously carrying on my dad’s legacy is a big part of that,” he said.
Nickolas said several of his dad’s former colleagues once discouraged him wanting to be a police officer, but have now given him their support and even taught him things about the field.
“We are still some time away, but rest assured, Dad. While Nov. 12, 2009, was the last time you went 10-41, it will not be the last time a Shaw comes on the radio to begin his shift,” Nickolas said.
No formal memorial service is planned today.
Today is the 10-year anniversary of when Kosciusko County Sheriff’s deputy Jeffery Shaw was killed in the line of duty after being hit by a pickup truck on Ind. 14 while he was on patrol. Shaw was 40 years old and left behind his wife, Angie, and their two children, Nickolas and Isabella, who were 9 and 7 at the time, respectively.
“Ten years down the road, this day just always sucks,” Angie said. “It’s easier, but Nov. 12 will just always be a bad, bad, bad day.”
Angie remembers when she got the phone call 10 years ago and how police officers picked her up from work, then stopped to pick up the chaplain before heading to the hospital in Fort Wayne.
“We were on (U.S.) 30 and the deputy I was with pulled to the side of the road, and I said, ‘No, keep going keep going keep going,’ and my brother was behind us in his police car, and the police officer that was driving and my brother were out talking along the road, and when my brother came up to the car, he told me along 30 that he had passed,” Angie said. She was then taken to Kosciusko Community Hospital.
Nickolas also remembers that day and he and his sister being taken to the hospital by a family friend.
“I asked where we were going and they said the hospital but wouldn’t say why. Me and Bella started whispering in the back that maybe mom was pregnant and had a baby, that was our best guess,” he said of the time. “When we got to the hospital, I remember seeing all the cop cars, but I didn’t see dad’s. When you ride in the same cop car almost daily it’s very easy to tell them apart, even for a 9 year old.”
He recalls seeing his mom and her taking them into a room and telling them their dad was in a bad car accident and didn’t make it.
“I remember feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach and I couldn’t talk. She took us in emergency room number 1, a room I will never step foot in again. We walked in and there was dad laying on a metal bed. I can remember touching his skin, but the only thing that touched me back was coldness, and that scared me. When I went to give him a kiss on the forehead, I can only remember the blood that I saw in his ear and then quickly trying to act like I hadn’t seen it. I told him that I loved him with all my heart,” Nickolas said of the time.
Jeff began his law enforcement career in July 1994 when he was hired as a jail officer in the work release department. Four years later in July 1998, he was hired as a merit deputy.
KCSO 1st Sgt. Chris McKeand worked with Jeff when he started in the jail in 1995 and recalls his friendship with him.
“He was one of my best friends, a hard worker, loyal to the community, loyal to the county and a good family man and a good father,” McKeand said. “He was just a good guy, a fun-loving person.”
Kosciusko County Coroner Tony Ciriello was Jeff’s field training officer for six weeks when he moved out of the jail division.
“Jeff was a good guy,” Ciriello said. “He was even-tempered, willing to listen to both sides of every incident and his decision seemed to be pretty sound on how to follow up.”
When Jeff was killed, Ciriello was working with the Syracuse Police Department and with the coroner’s office and his job was to work with the Shaw family.
“It was horrific,” Ciriello said. “It was somebody I helped train be a police officer, and I’m the one that had to spend the time with the family explaining what was going on and how things were going to proceed from there. It was terrible. But, today marks the 10-year anniversary and that’s pretty important.”
Sgt. Chris Francis said, “November 12, 2009, was the worst shift of my career. It's a travesty when you respond to any traumatic event; but responding to one of your own is indescribable. I will honor Jeff by spending time with my kids, because that's where his priorities were. Not a day goes by that Jeff isn't on my mind. As the youngest on the shift, he took me under his wing. He had the most important quality of a leadership position, he truly cared and the job wasn't about himself.”
The support from those colleagues and friends didn’t stop when Jeff died, Angie said. Those men became mentors to her children and family to them.
“Until this day, there is a handful of guys that Jeff worked with who I could call anytime day or night and they would be right here,” she said. “They give us so much support. In fact, one of the police officers contacted me a couple weeks ago and wanted to know if it would be OK if all the old gang got back together at our house this coming Saturday to do a friends’ Thanksgiving.”
Angie said her kids love it. She said then-sheriff Rocky Goshert would invite her family to every sheriff’s department event.
“Once you’re a police officer, they always say you’ve got all of these brothers, and Rocky invited us and the kids to anything they had, whether a baseball game, Christmas stuff, all the time we were always invited. It felt like Jeff wasn’t really gone, it was like he was just on duty. To this day, he (Goshert) is still there,” she said.
“Chris McKeand has really mentored Nickolas a lot and helped with a lot of the stuff that I just don’t know what to do. When a police officer gets killed in a line of duty, the kids automatically get their college paid for, so I didn’t have a clue where to start with that, and Chris has just been there through everything.”
Nickolas said the guys have been like a father figure to him.
“That meant more to me than I think they could ever know. They were at my (high school) graduation, and that meant a lot too,” he said.
Isabella is a junior at Warsaw Community High School and said she thinks of her dad every day.
“He was just a good guy. He really knew how to take care of everything. He always knew what to do,” she said. She said her dad’s former colleagues have been special.
“They’ve always been really protective of us and they’re always making sure we have everything we need,” she said.
Nickolas is a sophomore at Purdue University Fort Wayne and wants to be a police officer.
“I just feel like it’s a calling, and I like to help people and obviously carrying on my dad’s legacy is a big part of that,” he said.
Nickolas said several of his dad’s former colleagues once discouraged him wanting to be a police officer, but have now given him their support and even taught him things about the field.
“We are still some time away, but rest assured, Dad. While Nov. 12, 2009, was the last time you went 10-41, it will not be the last time a Shaw comes on the radio to begin his shift,” Nickolas said.
No formal memorial service is planned today.
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