Fallen Charleroi officer, pair from Monessen to be honored at national memorial

The names of a Charleroi police officer who died in the line of duty and two others from nearby Monessen are expected to be added next year to a national memorial honoring fallen patrolmen.
Rocky Geppert, a volunteer investigator for the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Allegheny County, said an application is pending to add Charleroi Patrolman George T. Arnold to the national memorial in Washington, D.C.
“I come from a long line of police and want to keep these officers’ lives memorialized,” said Geppert, an auxiliary police officer in Oakmont.
He said the names of former Monessen officers Alexander Vought and Michael Entinger already have been approved for listing on the walls at the national memorial next year.
Arnold was 43 when he died of a heart attack in March 1943 while making an arrest in an assault case. Geppert said he faced a Dec. 31 deadline to find a relative of Arnold’s to verify the story and attach that information to the application to the national memorial.
A former Charleroi borough secretary who is Arnold’s niece, Joelle Karelli, came forward and verified the story. Charleroi Regional police Chief Eric Porter forwarded that testimony to the memorial Tuesday in time to meet the deadline, Geppert said.
Entinger, 52, was serving as acting police chief in March 1913 when he suffered a fatal gunshot wound during a raid at a brothel in Wiretown on the outskirts of Monessen. The officers had a warrant to arrest a man for forcing his 16-year-old daughter into prostitution. The suspect was arrested two days later and eventually convicted of second-degree homicide.
Vought was a former state trooper who had been on the job as plainclothes officer in Monessen for only two weeks when he was shot twice and killed at a local restaurant in November 1918. The U.S. Army veteran was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Geppert said he and his father, Rick, scour the Web looking for information about police officers who died in the line of duty to add them to memorials.
“Their lives have not been recognized,” he said.