Thorp identified the chief as Steven Eric Disario. None of the 23 residents at the facility are believed to have been injured.
"It's just a tragic event", Mr Thorp said, adding that Disario had been responding to reports of a man with a gun when he was shot around 08:00 local time.
"We don't know the cause or the objective or what drove this individual to do this", Thorp said, adding that was being investigated. Thorp says Disario had only been on the job for three weeks.
Thorp called it a hard day for all. A home across the street reportedly was damaged by a stray bullet, but Thorp said that had not been confirmed to have been part of Friday's incident.
The Licking County Sheriff's Office also expressed their condolences to Disario's family.
He said police weren't immediately able to positively identify the gunman and were trying to determine what, if any, relationship he had with the nursing home.
Friday's events have shaken the community of Kirkersville, located off Interstate 70 in southern Licking County and home to fewer than 600 people. No other information has been released, and authorities are still on the scene.
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The residents in the facility were taken by squad to area hospitals, including Licking Memorial Hospital.
'We've lost a police officer.
Kirkersville Elementary was placed on lockdown and its students transported to the town's middle school. Officials said they lived on the same street.
Two law enforcement sources told 10TV the gunman is down.
The shooting closed down the main street in the village, which was flooded with police officers from several surrounding agencies and with ambulances.
The state Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) is leading the probe into what happened. Cottrell had ties to Licking County and had graduated from Central Ohio Technical College.
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