Akron police officer Frank Dennis Mancini, who was among two officers paralyzed in an April 1965 shooting that left another officer mortally wounded, has died.Mr. Mancini, 72, of Cuya-hoga Falls, died Monday morning at Summa Western Reserve Hospital in Cuyahoga Falls of complications from pneumonia.Mr. Mancini and reserve officer Harold Wintrow were paralyzed and officer Eugene Hooper was killed April 10, 1965, when they tried to stop a car in Akron that matched the description of one involved in an armed robbery in Barberton.The officers stopped the car near the Akron expressway and when Mr. Mancini tried to handcuff Charles Jennings, the suspect tried to run away. Jennings grabbed Mr. Mancini’s gun and shot the three policemen.Jennings, who admitted to the robbery and shooting, was sentenced to life in prison in 1965. He is now 72 and remains incarcerated at the Allen Correctional Institute.Terrence Landry Jr., who was with Jennings during the shootings and testified against him, was paroled in 1977.Wintrow died in 1993 at age 63.Falls licensed practical nurse Nancy Anderson had cared for Mr. Mancini since 1968.“He was my best buddy,” said Anderson, 68, who started out working part time but became the family’s full-time nurse in 1970.“He was nice, he was kind, he was funny. … He never complained.” Mr. Mancini, who was paralyzed from the chest down, was “the most humble individual I ever met in my life,” said former Akron police Chief Craig Gilbride. The former chief said Mr. Mancini never complained and “had the best interest of the city at heart and ended up giving up his life for this city.”Mayor Don Plusquellic was a student at Kenmore High School when the officers were shot and remembers the event.It happened on East Avenue in Kenmore, the mayor said, and the reserve officer, Wintrow, who was also paralyzed, lived in the Kenmore area.“They all paid a price,” said Plusquellic calling the incident a “terrible tragedy.”Summit County Sheriff Drew Alexander called Mr. Mancini “a very modest individual and at the same time he was charismatic.”He said a Frank Mancini Award is given in Akron every year to civilians who assist police officers in a heroic way.Richard “Rich” Mostardi, a longtime friend of Mr. Mancini, said there is also a scholarship set up in his name at Kent State University for athletes in need.Mr. Mancini played football at St. Vincent High School and Kent State University and even tried out for the Buffalo Bills, said Mostardi, who was the quarterback on the same KSU team as Mancini.Mostardi, who later played football for the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings, had visited his friend every Tuesday for the last 15 years. He said he believes that Mr. Mancini used skills learned on the football field to keep going after he was shot.“He may be the longest-living quadriplegic,” said Mostardi, an orthopedic researcher for the University of Akron and Summa Health System.“Frank taught me a lot about strength and perseverance. He carried his old football skills through this devastating paralysis that he had.”Mostardi last visited his friend on Sunday.“He was a brave, brave, stalwart guy,” Mostardi said. “Just an old football player. I remember him as a blocking tight end., I could always count on Frank to block.”Anderson said she and Mr. Mancini went through a lot over the decades, including the deaths of Mr. Mancini’s parents and the death of her own daughter, Kathy Cogar, to breast cancer in 2006.He taught her “to be patient, to be a little bit kinder, and don’t be so serious in life.”He was preceded in death by his parents, Peter and Frances Mancini; and is survived by his sisters, Priscilla (Ralph) Laruccia of Silver Lake and Mary Jane McGarry of Cuyahoga Falls.Calling hours will be 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Clifford-Shoemaker Funeral Home in Cuyahoga Falls. A service will take place at the funeral home at 10 a.m. Friday. He will be buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Akron. Memorials can be made to the Akron FOP Lodge 7, 2610 Ley Drive, Akron, OH 44319 or Hospice of Summa, P.O. Box 2090, Akron OH 44398.Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or at jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.