Dimebag Darrell's Assassination Aftermath: PTSD Haunts Hero Cop Who Stopped Onstage Killer

Dec 8th 2004, Columbus Police Officer Jim Niggemeyer enters a nightclub where he is forced to quickly shoot a homicidal ex Marine named Nathan Gale in the head. Gale was holding a hostage, and had stormed the stage, killing 4 people including guitarist DimeBag Darrell Abbott with a hand gun he wasn't supposed to have, but his mother had skirted the background check law to give him. Now 12 years later the cop that saved lives in the Alrosa Villa nightclub, still deals with the post traumatic stress issues from that grim, fateful evening. Niggemeyer wishes that it all had never happened, or at least he had better ways to deal with the stress from that event. The shooting cost him his job, not because of what he did to Gale, but because he was later diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Under Ohio law, anyone who suffers from brain trauma while on the job isn't covered by workers' compensation. Niggemeyer wants the law to change.

"I think they need to do a lot better job with officers that don't have physical injuries, but mental injuries," Niggemeyer said.


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