TOLEDO, OHIO -- It has been forty years since Diane Miscannon remembers attending her father's very public funeral and how the world had changed around her so quickly.
It was September 18th of 1970, when her father, Patrol William Miscannon was shot to death by a lone gunman as he sat in his TPD paddy wagon on Dorr Street near Junction Street.
The shooting left the city shocked and sparked flares of violence between police and the African-American neighborhood where the shooting took place. It was a time of great turmoil and unrest. Few people in Toledo who lived through will forget it.
Diane Miscannon was just ten years old at the time, and as she watched the events unfold this week in Sandusky where a police officer was killed in the line of duty, she says wants to reach out to remind the family and the public to remember the children of the fallen officer. "Especially the young children. They don't know what's going on around them and what is happening to them and what will happen in the future." She says she also advises anyone going through a similar situations to create scrapbooks of photos and news articles.
She says so much information is lost over the years and she credits her mother with having the foresight to create about a half dozen scrapbooks filled with the articles about her father and the ensuing trials of the suspects in the case. She those books are about the only memory she has of her father. Diane Miscannon is currently working with other volunteers on the new Toledo Police history museum which will open early this summer.
The museum, to be located in Ottawa Park, will feature a complete exhibit on all of the Toledo Police officers who have died in the line of duty.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWNWO