When he was a boy growing up in Green Township, Paul “PJ“ Reinert would hop on his bike and chase the sirens of police cars and firetrucks, trying to find out where they were going.

Reinert

        “He's wanted to be a policeman ever since he was a little boy,” said his wife, Deana Reinert of Harrison Township. “He loves being a policeman.”

        Her husband is a Hamilton County sheriff's deputy. And on Tuesday, she learned just how dangerous the job can be.

        Deputy Reinert, 29, began chasing a red Firebird going nearly 100 miles per hour shortly before 3 p.m. on Interstate 275 near Colerain Township. Within two minutes, his cruiser crashed. He was in critical condition with multiple injuries at University Hospital's intensive care unit Wednesday night.

        The red Firebird and the driver remain at large.

        A police officer's spouse learns to live with the dangers of the job.

Hamilton County sheriff's officers gather around Deputy Paul J. Reinert's cruiser Tuesday. Reinert remains in critical condition. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        “You worry about it, but you can't drive yourself crazy worrying about it,” said Mrs. Reinert. “You just try to think it won't happen to him, but you always know in the back of your head it could.”

        The Reinerts will celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary next week. They have 6-year-old twins, a girl and a boy, and another son, 8.

        The children are “very nervous and kind of scared,” she said. “They're old enough to understand what's going on.”

        It was after 3 on Tuesday afternoon when Mrs. Reinert received a call from her brother, who had passed the scene of a bad accident on I-275 involving a sheriff's cruiser. He asked if she had heard from PJ.

        She called her husband's cell phone and got voice mail. She paged him, but he didn't return her call. She finally called the sheriff's patrol headquarters and got a deputy.

        “As soon as he said, "Hold on,' I knew,” she said.

        Under the sheriff's office policy on vehicle pursuits, a deputy must radio a supervisor with details of the chase. The officer can stop chasing if it gets too dangerous. A supervisor also can order the deputy to back off.

        But in Tuesday's incident, the crash happened so quickly after the chase began that there wasn't time for a supervisor to render a decision, said sheriff's spokesman Steve Barnett.

        The accident remains under investigation.

        Sheriff's Sgt. Tom Butler heard Deputy Reinert's radio call that he had started chasing a car going 95 mph. Less than two minutes later, there was a transmission from the deputy's radio that there had been an accident and gave the location. That transmission was from a passerby using the deputy's radio.

        Sgt. Butler, Deputy Reinert's supervisor, headed to the scene.

        “A thousand things were going through my mind on the way there,” Sgt. Butler said. “He wasn't answering the radio. I knew something bad had happened. I didn't know how bad until I pulled up.”

        Deputy Reinert's co-workers have to deal with their emotions while at the same time investigating his crash.

        “It's a balancing act,” Sgt. Butler said. “None of us can treat PJ or heal him. We have to do what we know we can do, and that's investigate this crash and try to find who we're looking for. And that's the thing we can do for the family.”

        Sgt. Butler spoke slowly and paused while talking about his friend Wednesday. Tears welled up in his eyes.

        “His wife and kids, that's his life,” Sgt. Butler said. “You can tell his kids are his world.”

        Anyone with information about the accident or the whereabouts of the person driving the Firebird is asked to call the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office at 825-1500.

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