COLUMBUS – Hundreds of people attended a candlelight vigil at Hilliard’s First Responders Park last night to honor Officer Sean Johnson, who died last Thursday in an on-duty motorcycle crash.
(Visitation: Tuesday, 4:00 – 8: p.m., St. Paul the Apostle church, Westerville. Funeral: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m., St. Paul the Apostle Church. Funeral escort will proceed past First Responders Park and the City of Hilliard Safety Services Building)
A native of Pennsylvania who began his career in law enforcement after leaving the Air Force in 1995, Johnson was a much-decorated officer who joined the Hilliard police division in 1999, according to an officials biography released by the division Sunday.
Johnson was a crisis intervention officer who interceded in dramatic situations, including talking a man out of committing suicide by jumping off a roadway bridge in 2009 and assisting in a strange kidnapping case in 2014 in which a suspect tried to extort $10,000 from a friend.
Johnson was also recognized in 2008 for rescuing an elderly woman from burning home, in 2011 for tracking a shooting suspect through the snow at the Luxair Addition to a home where SWAT officers arrested the suspect, and in 2007 when he maintained control in the midst of a brawl where a man had been stabbed inside a vehicle.
Johnson had transferred to the division’s new Traffic Safety Unit and was killed during a training exercise on his motorcycle.