HILLIARD (WCMH)–A 16-year veteran of the Hilliard Police Department was escorted Friday from the county morgue to a funeral home a day after he died in a motorcycle crash during a training exercise.

Sean Johnson is the first HPD officer to die in the line of duty since the division’s inception in 1960. No other police officers were injured, the department said.

Johnson was assigned to HPD’s Patrol Bureau for the past 16 years and recently became a member of the new Traffic Safety Unit.

Hilliard Police Chief Robert Fisher says Johnson was an experienced motorcyclist, making what happened Thursday all the more unlikely.

Johnson was participating in motorcycle training exercises with other members of Hilliard’s motorcycle unit when he apparently lost control on the flyover ramp from I-270 south to SR 161 east.

A caller to 911 described what happened. “A motorcycle just hit the rail and went off on to 161. He went over the guard rail.”

Hilliard Police Chief Robert Fisher described it as a freak accident.

Fisher called Johnson a man of compassion, a gentle giant.

“His calming nature was really why he was such a good member of our crisis intervention team,” Fisher said. “We had a number of folks that would regularly seek help from Sean.”

Fisher said he has spent time with Johnson’s family, the officer’s two children.

“The next couple of days are going to be hard for them,”Fisher said. “I can’t imagine for the kids. I have teenage kids myself and to think of what losing their dad is doing to them, it’s horrible.”

Before Johnson was with HPD, he was a member of the Ohio Investigative Unit.

Enforcement Commander Richard Cologie said Johnson was “just an all-around good guy.”

“If you met him, he just gave off that aura that he was going to do the right thing,” Cologie said.

“He certainly contributed to a safer Ohio and a safer city for Hilliard. He’s going to be missed . . . He was a good guy. He was a good agent. He was a good police officer.”

HPD says tentative funeral arrangements are being made at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Westerville.

Visitation is tentatively Tuesday from 4 – 8 p.m. and the funeral is tentatively Wednesday at 11 a.m.What others are clicking on: