The Strasburg man who engaged Sheriff’s deputies in a 6-hour standoff and allegedly pointed a gun at his 3-year-old daughter’s head has been formally charged with four felonies.
45-year-old James A. Copeland faces two counts of kidnapping with firearms specifications, violating a protection order and menacing by stalking. He is in the Tuscarawas County Jail awaiting a Monday preliminary hearing with bail set at one million dollars. Tuscarawas County Sheriff
Orvis Campbell says Copeland could have avoided arrest if he had cooperated with deputies when they went to his Haswell Circle Apartment at 3:30 p.m. Instead, Campbell says he slammed the door on the deputies and began acting hostile.
Eventually, Copeland came out of the building unarmed with his daughter around 9:30 p.m., according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office. He was taken into custody, and the child was given to a close family friend for the time being.
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