Details emerge in police shooting case

FINDLAY — In the early evening on Oct. 28, 2024, Findlay police responded to Bernard Park for a report of teenagers consuming alcohol. Seventeen-year-old Kalvin Darapheth was one of them. In Findlay Police Department bodycam footage, Darapheth and another teen texted messages on their phones as officers spoke to the group of three. At 6:42 p.m. Darapheth texted someone, "Police pulled up." A few seconds later, he texted the same person, messaging the phrase "I'm f—-", according to records released by the Ohio Attorney General's Office. Officers can be heard telling Darapheth's mother over the phone that Darapheth would be arrested and released for underage possession and drinking of alcohol in the bodycam footage. Though the officers didn't know it at that point, Darapheth also had a stolen gun, according to police records. Darapheth can then be seen running away from officers before shots are heard first coming from Darapheth and then from officers returning fire, ultimately ending in Darapheth being shot multiple times in the chest and head. He died the next day in ProMedica Toledo Hospital. A stolen gun On the morning of Sept. 21, 2024, a Findlay police officer was called to the 600 block of Charles Avenue in Findlay for a report of a firearm stolen from a vehicle. According to a police report, the person the gun was stolen from said it had a fully-loaded magazine when it was taken from the center console of a vehicle. Police determined the gun Darapheth fired in October to be the weapon stolen from that vehicle on Charles Avenue in September. Photos taken from Darapheth's cell phone show Darapheth posing with other youths holding what police believe to be the stolen gun, in addition to other guns. During an interview between a Bureau of Criminal Investigations agent and a teenager who had been with Darapheth in Bernard Park, the youth told the agent they had seen Darapheth carrying a weapon previously and had seen the handle of a firearm sticking out of his waistband while they sat at a table in the park. In an interview with Findlay police Officer Kyle Bormuth, who fired his service weapon at Darapheth, Bormuth recalled thinking Darapheth seemed nervous during the initial interaction. While chasing Darapheth, Bormuth said he did not see where Darapheth pulled the weapon from, but he was concerned for his life and the lives of the other juveniles still present in the area when he saw Darapheth fire the gun at him. An autopsy report from the Lucas County Coroner's Office is included in records made available to the public via the Ohio Attorney General's website, but the report is entirely redacted. Hancock County Prosecutor Sean Abbott said in a release the case had been considered closed on Jan. 28.