Officer Down: Deputy Sheriff Anthony Forgione
By Robbyn Brooks
Daily News
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. — Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputy Anthony Forgione was shot and killed Tuesday morning as he tried to apprehend a man who escaped from the hospital. His shooter is also dead.
Forgione was 33 years old and had two daughters, 5 and 10. Thursday would have marked his three-year anniversary with the Sheriff’'s Office. He’'d previously worked for the Fort Walton Beach Police Department.
The shooter was 47-year-old Mark Rohlman, one of six brothers who grew up in the same Plymouth Avenue house he died in Tuesday morning, according to neighbors.
“I watched those boys grow up and it’'s just so sad for both families involved in this,” said Mary Parker, a dding she remembers the shooter getting on the school bus as a child.
Deputies picked up Rohlman Monday afternoon for an involuntary examination under the Baker Act. He had been uncooperative when he was taken to the Bridgeway Center and transferred to the Fort Walton Beach Medical Center where he later escaped.
Deputies found Rohlman and took him back to the hospital, but not before the man kicked out a patrol car window, Michele Nicholson with the Sheriff’'s Office said.
Early Tuesday morning, deputies learned Rohlman had escaped again and barricaded himself in his childhood home at 331 Plymouth Avenue. The house had been vacant for months and the phone disconnected after Walter Rohlman, the shooter’'s father, died. The Special Response Team and Crisis Negotiation Unit tried to talk Rohlman out of the home with a bull horn.
“He told them he had a shot gun and he would use it,” Nicholson said.
The SRT and negotiators got no further respons e and went into the home about 6 a.m. Tuesday. Rohlman shot Forgione who was later pronounced dead at the Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.
Deputies returned fire and Rohlman died at the scene.
“It’'s very quiet here,” said Margaret Chapman who lives on Plymouth Avenue. “Nothing like that ever happens, but I guess it did this time.”
Forgione and his family lived in Niceville where his brother is also a law enforcement officer.
The Sheriff’'s Office will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. today to release more information about Rohlman and Forgione, the first Okaloosa County deputy to be killed in the line of duty.
Copyright 2008 The Daily News