Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The small village of Gibsonburg was the site of a crime scene on the morning of Aug. 26 as 25-year-old Scott Dodd Jr. allegedly stabbed a police officer in the neck, which led to an extensive manhunt and his eventual arrest later the same day.
Dodd was apprehended shortly after 3 p.m. in Gibsonburg, just hours after a statewide Blue Alert was issued following the initial incident, which happened at Union Bank Company at 230 W. Madison St. just before 9 a.m.
“I want to thank all of the law enforcement personnel and different agencies that were on scene helping with the manhunt today,” Gibsonburg mayor Steve Fought said. “There were over 15 different agencies who came together to get the job done. Me and my team were on scene the entire day supporting however they needed, and I got to see first-hand just how incredible all these agencies worked together using all of the tools and technology at their disposal to catch the suspect.”
The officer, Maria Kisha, underwent surgery the morning of Aug. 27 and was listed in stable condition. The suspect, meanwhile, was reportedly shot in the face by the officer after she was stabbed while responding to a call. Both were transported to and treated at Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center.
Gibsonburg’s police chief, Don Karr, said he believes it was the first time a police officer has been severely injured in an incident within the village. Fought said “things like that just don’t happen here.”
“Maybe we had an officer hurt mildly before, but this is definitely the most critical and the only critical one we've probably ever had that I can recall,” Karr said.
An official statement by the Gibsonburg Police Department said the incident originated with officers responding to an officer down call at 8:59 a.m. in the 200 block of West Madison Street. Upon arrival, the wounded officer was located with severe injuries and transported.
A preliminary investigation indicated that the officer was responding to a trespassing call at the private business. At the scene, the female officer made contact with Dodd, who was trespassing. While being relocated, he stabbed the officer, who then fired her service weapon at Dodd before he fled into nearby woods.
“It’s been the most collaborative effort,” Sandusky County Sheriff Chris Hilton said. “State patrol and the sheriff's office deployed their SRT teams and that's what we do. With the plan we came up with, we pushed him to a spot where we could apprehend him just about 300 yards from here. It was a completely collaborative effort with everything we did. Chief Karr was taking care of his officer. We took care of the rest, and this is what we do for each other. It was truly a federal, state, local collaborative effort, and it turned out the way it should. The suspect is in custody and hopefully the officer is going to be okay.”
Hilton said the scope of the search was pretty significant.
“It goes all the way out to County Road 42,” he said. “It’s a pretty large area because there's a stone quarry just behind us here to the northwest and there's a lot of wooded areas just to the northwest of the village here.”
The Gibsonburg Police Department and the Sandusky County Sheriff’s Office were assisted on scene by the Ohio State Highway Patrol as well as police departments from Toledo, Woodville, Clyde, Fremont, Oregon and Perrysburg Township. Also assisting were the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office, Wood County Sheriff’s Office, Sandusky County Emergency Medical Services, Sandusky County Emergency Management Agency, Gibsonburg Fire Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Marshal Service, United States Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Customs and Border Protection and Lucas County Sheriff’s Office.
“It's a bad day in our community, right?” Fought said. “But just echoing what the sheriff said, it's great to see the law enforcement community all come together to get the outcome that we needed to hopefully get justice here for our officer and the issues that happened. I've been here on the ground all day. I left work, got here as quickly as I could to support however these guys needed it here on the ground. I'm very appreciative for all the help that we've got from all the agencies. It's a tragic day. Nothing we want to see happen. Prayers to our officer and her family. It's good to see the outcome that we got here. And now we need to move forward and now we can see justice for her.”
As of press time, the incident remains under investigation by the Sandusky County Sheriff’s Office, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was requested to investigate the officer-involved shooting.
Hilton said that Dodd will likely be charged with one crime initially.
“Then there'll probably be some addendums to that and some additions,” he said. “I don't know what that is at the moment, but he will have criminal charges by the time he gets to the hospital.”
Dodd was arrested within Sandusky County just last year on an assault charge, which he pleaded guilty to and was ordered to undergo anger management. He was placed on active probation in October 2025.
Area schools, sporting events affected
Due to the suspect being considered armed and dangerous, nearby schools such as Eastwood and Woodmore were placed in lockdown while law enforcement officers from multiple departments established a perimeter and searched for Dodd. Residents of the village of Gibsonburg were also asked to shelter in place during the manhunt.
At 9:40 a.m., Woodmore was placed in a Secondary Lockdown due to the incident. At 10:57 a.m., Eastwood announced a Level 1 (Green) Lockdown. Gibsonburg, which didn’t start school yet, joined Eastwood and Woodmore in postponing all athletic-related practices and games scheduled for Aug. 26.
“While this was certainly not the first day of school that any of us expected to have, it was once again an example of just how exceptional our students, staff, parents and community are,” Eastwood superintendent Brian Hughes said in a statement. “These decisions are never easy. However, when it comes to the safety of your children, our students, I will always err on the side of caution. I could not, in good conscience, put students on buses and send them home without being 100 percent certain that every student would be going home to a safe environment with a trusted adult.”
