Injured police officers' conditions improving

7/4/2014
BLADE STAFF

Two city police officers who were seriously injured after a Jeep slammed into their patrol vehicle on Thursday remain hospitalized but appear to be improving.

Officers Jeron Ellis and Todd Mikolajczyk are listed in fair condition at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, according to a hospital spokesman. On Thursday evening they were listed in serious but stable condition.

The officers, both 30, were on routine patrol at about 4:45 a.m. Thursday when a suspect fleeing from a Highway Patrol trooper ran several stop signs and slammed into the passenger side of the officers‘ sport-utility vehicle at Greenwood Avenue and East Broadway. The officers had to be extricated and were immediately hospitalized with serious, although unspecified, injuries.

Matthew Hartford, 28, of 308 Oakdale Ave., is to be arraigned in Toledo Municipal Court on Saturday for two counts of felonious assault. Officials said the Highway Patrol trooper tried to stop Hartford on Miami Street, near I-75, for speeding. He was believed to be driving more than 70 mph. The officer briefly pursued the vehicle, but, at Greenwood and Euclid avenues, terminated the pursuit because of safety concerns in the residential East Toledo neighborhood. The crash occurred seconds later.