DETECTIVE DRESSEL LOVED WORK WITH POLICE, FAMILY SAYS

Toledo police Detective Keith Dressel grew up in Ottawa Lake, Mich.,
a quiet, little blink-and-you'll-miss-it community just north of the
Ohio-Michigan line.

Ottawa Lake is a rural community within the reaches of Toledo. Many
kids who grow up there yearn for a taste of the city.

Detective Dressel, 35, was no exception. While he never forgot his
peaceful roots in rural Ottawa Lake, where parents Larraine and Mike
Dressel raised him, he went into law enforcement because he wanted to
make a difference in Toledo.

"Police work was his love," said Ms. Dressel, an elementary teacher
for Whiteford Agricultural Schools and a Whiteford Township trustee.
Detective Dressel's aunt, Pam, is the township supervisor.

The detective's mother said she knew her son was in a risky line of work.

"Once in a while I'd think about it, but you can't live your life
worried," she said.

The detective's wife, the former Danielle Durham, 32, whom he married
in 2005, followed in his footsteps in the pursuit of a possible
law-enforcement career.

She is a criminal justice student at the University of Findlay's
campus at Owens Community College, but Larraine Dressel said her
daughter-in-law gave up thoughts of becoming a police officer after
riding with her husband on his rounds. "She decided that wasn't for her."

Keith Dressel was in the Whiteford school system through eighth
grade, then came to Toledo to attend St. Francis de Sales High
School. He loved football and he loved music.

Carl Collier, a St. Francis history instructor and its longtime music
director, remembers Detective Dressel playing saxophone in the high
school's band in the late 1980s. He said Keith was a good student
with an affable demeanor.

"He was a good-sized kid, strong and athletic," Mr. Collier said. "At
the same time, he seemed like a real gentle guy. He was a real fun
guy to be around. He was a real thoughtful kid to others."

Ms. Dressel said her son played bass guitar at a couple of musicals
and other school events. He even toyed around in a high school rock
band for a time, she said.

Keith graduated from St. Francis in 1989 and dreamed of becoming a
lawyer. Those dreams shifted to law enforcement, his mother said,
while he was working at the Value City store on Lewis Avenue and
Alexis Road. He became dismayed by how lawyers got some shoplifters
exonerated, she said.

Keith was hired by the Toledo Police Department on Dec. 10, 1993. He
was involved in several arrests as a police officer, including one in
March, 1998, when his right hand was broken by a suspect.

Two months later, in May, 1998, Officer Dressel and another officer
were honored for bravery for saving the life of a 67-year-old
disabled man who had been trapped in a burning house on East Bancroft
Street. The two officers lifted the man through a window to safety.

In 1999, Officer Dressel left the field operations and communications
division and became a detective with the vice and narcotics unit.

Larraine and Mike Dressel grew up in Ottawa Lake and have spent their
38 years of marriage there. The couple admired the way their
detective son "handled a lot of tough situations with humor."

Keith and Danielle had a 4-year-old boy, Noah. They also have helped
raise a 6-year-old girl, Sydney, from Danielle's previous marriage
along with the girl's biological father, Larraine Dressel said.

"[Detective Dressel] was the best. He loved [the] children," she said.

"He really, really, really loved [the] kids. He doted on them," his
father agreed.

The detective's parents said the two children took the loss hard.
Family members yesterday were taping local television news accounts
of what happened for the children to help them understand the tragedy
as they grow older, Larraine Dressel said.

"We're pretty well torn up," she said. Office staff and prosecutors
at Lucas County Juvenile Court were stunned by the death of Detective
Dressel. He sometimes showed up for morning hearings, still dressed
in street clothes from the night shift. Terry Leonard, office
manager, called him "a Joe Everybody, a really nice guy."

"You sit and talk and joke with [the officers] and you forget that
the jobs they do are so dangerous," she said.

Detective Dressel was Toledo's 31st officer slain in the line of duty
and the first since the fall of 1970.

Police Chief Mike Navarre said Detective Dressel was "an exceptional
officer and will be truly missed."

Similar thoughts were echoed by Dan Wagner, president of the Toledo
Police Patrolman's Association, who said Detective Dressel "was loved
by all of his fellow co-workers."

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, en route back to Toledo from a mayoral
convention in Miami, offered his condolences to the Dressel family
through a statement released by spokesman Brian Schwartz.

"It seems profoundly senseless that such a loss could occur. It very
sadly reflects the times in which we live ..." the statement said.

Staff writers Clyde Hughes, Robin Erb, and Erica Blake contributed to
this report.