The man who pointed a gun at Toledo police after taking authorities on a two-county chase, which included a fatal crash, was not the father Jacob Lipp knew.
Mr. Lipp, 19, said his father, Brian Lipp, 48, "was a great dad when he wasn't doing things that were bad."
"When this all happened, it wasn't my dad," said Mr. Lipp. "It's like it all happened so fast. He was lonely."
Lipp, a graduate of Bedford Senior High School and the middle of three children, was shot and killed by police Saturday after a chaotic morning of fleeing police and multiple crashes, which resulted in one fatality. Lipp's autopsy is scheduled for this morning. Authorities -- three from Toledo police, three from the State Highway Patrol, and one from the FBI -- fired 40 to 50 rounds at Lipp.
Lipp had his demons. A 1991 conviction for permitting drug abuse appears under his name in the records of Toledo Municipal Court.
The Toledo court record remained largely clear until 2001, when he was arrested on a domestic violence charge, which was dismissed, and drug possession, which was reduced to attempt to commit an offense. He also was convicted of attempt to commit an offense in Toledo Municipal Court. That's about the time a friend who had fallen on hard times moved in with Lipp and his second wife, Tamara, 31.
Ms. Lipp said the friend was addicted to cocaine and it wasn't long before her husband started using, too.
"Brian tried it, and he had an addictive personality, and it stuck," Ms. Lipp said.
Lipp was married twice -- first to Christie Ray, in 1987. They had one son, Jacob, and divorced in 2001. Then, in 2002, he married Tamara Schmitz, with whom he worked at a Toledo garage-door company. Later that year, the couple had a daughter, Tristan, now 9.
Ms. Lipp said she watched the man she loved -- who she describes as kind, generous, and a great father -- become more desperate as his addiction worsened.
In the midst of their 2005 divorce, Lipp was convicted of escape and grand theft of a motor vehicle after pleading guilty in Lucas County Common Pleas Court. He was sentenced to serve four years -- two for the listed charges and an additional two for a 2003 burglary conviction.
After he was released from prison in 2009, Lipp "looked healthy," Ms. Lipp said. With a new job it appeared he was ready to turn things around -- he "was so full of life and so new," she said.
But the demons returned.
Initially, when Lipp was released from prison he seemed to stay out of trouble. But by 2010, he was charged with traffic and drug-related crimes, and the crimes were escalating, until last week's alleged crime spree.
"It was shocking because he'd never stooped to that low," Ms. Lipp said. "He'd steal from his family or from me, but to hold a place up at gunpoint? That wasn't him. He was in such a desperate state. He had to have been for him to cause all the chaos that he caused [Saturday] and to go down the way he went down. That's not him."
Lipp allegedly robbed a North Toledo Rite Aid and burglarized a South Toledo home on Aug. 19 and robbed a Walgreens on Sept. 1.
