Officer Phillip Wagner honored, added to Lorain Police Memorial (UPDATED)

LORAIN — The family, friends, fellow officers and community of Lorain police officer Phillip Wagner gathered Friday to mourn him on the anniversary of his death, but also to celebrate his life, his legacy and how his sacrifice had brought them closer together. Wagner, 35, of North Ridgeville, died on July 24, 2025, when he succumbed to injuries suffered the day before in an ambush shooting of him and another officer in the city. Officers Peter Gale and Brent Payne also were injured in the shooting last year, Gale in the initial ambush off of Colorado Avenue and Payne while responding to the ambush. Payne returned to duty with Lorain police earlier this week. On the first anniversary of his death Friday, Wagner's name was added to the Lorain Police Memorial in front of Lorain City Hall and those who loved and worked with him spoke about the life he lived and the loss they still felt in his absence. Wagner was survived by his wife, Jess, and their three children, and the memorial on Friday marked the first time that Jess Wagner spoke at a public event since her husband's death. Jess Wagner recounted a series of conversations she had with her husband in the months before his death, wherein Wagner said he felt he was not "doing enough" and considered the possibility of seeking a new career. "I had a Bible verse on my phone every day, and I read it to him about staying where you are, because God is going to use you in the place that you are," Jess Wagner said Friday. "I sent that to him and he goes 'I think I know what that means,' and I said 'I think you do too, and I do.' And so that was the unspoken decision; that he needed to stay in Lorain, where God put him. And little did we know, about a month later, God would use him to immensely protect the city in a way that none of us had ever imagined." Like nearly every speaker who stepped in front of the memorial on Friday, Jess Wagner said that her husband would not have wanted his friends and community to dwell on how he died, but instead to celebrate the work he had done and how he had brought them all together. She said that the support her family and her husband's fellow officers had received from across the local community and beyond showed how much police and their work were appreciated, and that "we are all one community." "I would like from this day forward — as I've considered this a new year for my family, instead of starting on Jan. 1 it starts on July 24 for us — that we walk into this new year without Phil seeing the joy in things, seeing the ways that we can impact others and the things that you can do to make somebody realize that they are where they need to be," Jess Wagner said. Members of the Lorain Police Honor Guard helped Jess Wagner lay a wreath before the memorial that bore the date of her husband's end of watch: 7/24/2025. Wagner was added to the police memorial along with another fallen Lorain police officer who died more than a century earlier: officer Frank Hall, who died of heart failure shortly after making an arrest in 1906. Lorain Police Chief Michael Failing asked the crowd to take a moment of silence and reflect not just on the sacrifices of the fallen Lorain police officers, but of Rittman police Sgt. Scott Ries — killed in the line of duty on July 5 — and of all fallen law enforcement officers. "One year ago today, our department suffered another unimaginable loss with the assassination of officer Phil Wagner," Failing said. "The Lorain Police Department had not suffered a tragedy of this magnitude in more than 80 years, and it devastated every member of this department. But in the darkest moments, we also witnessed the very best of humanity. For every act of evil, there was an even greater outpouring of compassion. The support we received from our law enforcement, our local community, neighboring communities and people from across the country was overwhelming." Mayor Jack Bradley said that the day Wagner died was one of the darkest in Lorain's long history, and that it should serve as a reminder that public safety was secured only through courage and a willingness to make sacrifices like those made by Wagner and his fellow officers on July 24 of last year. Bradley thanked Payne and Gale, whom he called heroes, as well as every member of the Lorain Police Department for continuing to serve the city even while dealing with the personal tragedy of losing one of their own. "Every day you honor Phillip by wearing the same badge with the same dedication that he did," Bradley said. "As mayor, I pledge that Officer Wagner's memory will remain woven into the fabric of our city. Future generations will know his name; they will know that when Lorain needed him most, he served with courage and honor. While one year has passed, our gratitude has not diminished, our sorrow has not disappeared and our commitment to remembering him has only grown stronger. May we not only honor him with words today, but by striving to build a city that is worthy of the sacrifice he made." While support came from almost everywhere, it was those closest to Wagner that rallied most around his family and ensured that they were comforted and supported. That initial response from Wagner's friends and fellow officers has now grown and been expanded to include the mission of carrying on his legacy in the form of the Phillip Wagner Foundation. Lorain police officer Eric Rivera, a member of the foundation and close friend of Wagner, said that the foundation would continue Wagner's legacy by supporting his young family, families of other fallen law enforcement officers, and to support training of those seeking to become police officers or of current officers seeking to join a SWAT team. The Lorain SWAT, or Special Weapons and Tactics, team was one of Wagner's great passions along with a love for firearms more broadly, Rivera said. This love played a role in the development of Wagner's beloved nickname, P Wags, Rivera said, though he said with a smile he would "not go too deep into it." "Phil was an awesome human being, I still think of him as an awesome human being, I think about him constantly," Rivera said. "Today is a hard day, yesterday was a hard day, everyday is a hard day, but when you think about him (Wagner), that is not what it is that he would have wanted you to think about. Phil would say 'Hey man, let's have a good day today' … So Phil wanted to bring people up, uplift them and train so that he could become better, so that way he could better serve the community and the people that were around him." Rivera said it was an honor to be a part of the Phillip Wagner Foundation because he knew that he was helping to ensure that Wagner's legacy of serving his community lived on. That commitment to service predated Wagner's time in Lorain, as before joining the department in 2022 Wagner had been a police officer in Sheffield Lake for four years and had served in the U.S. Marine Corps before that. He was originally from Arizona. His sister Megan Wagner, herself a military veteran, recounted Wagner's eagerness to serve his country immediately after high school, but she also told the crowd about the creative, caring, loyal, animal-loving younger brother she had grown up with. Megan Wagner recounted with deep gratitude the support that she and her family had received from police officers from Lorain and from nearby departments like Elyria, Sheffield Lake, North Ridgeville and Cleveland. She also recalled the thousands of mourners and supporters who stood by the side of roads across northern Ohio that she and her family saw as they rode in the funeral motorcade from North Ridgeville to Wagner's funeral in Cleveland — which was attended by thousands — and finally to his final resting place in Bellevue. "It was so incredible to witness the outpouring of support and honor for our brother in such a magnificent way," Megan Wagner said. "He was a simple guy, but he deserved the hero's sendoff that he received and for that, we are humbled and grateful." At the conclusion of the memorial, the Wagner family and Lorain Police Department invited those in attendance to join them for a cookout and ice cream, something that Failing said was Jess Wagner's idea. "Jess said something that has stayed with me ever since, 'Why don't we combine this memorial with a community cookout? Not everything we do for Phil has to be somber, Phil wasn't a somber guy,'" Failing said. "She was absolutely right. Today is a day of remembrance, but it is also a day of gratitude. As we gather to dedicate Officer Phil Wagner's name to our Wall of Honor, we also celebrate the life he lived, the people he loved and the community that embraced his family when they needed it most." Wagner's family joined in the act of serving hot dogs and ice cream – including cookies n' cream, Wagner's favorite – to the crowd. "Thank you all so much for being here," Jess Wagner said. "It has been an honor to be loved on by this city and served by this city, and it is an honor for us to be able to serve you today." Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.