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Sgt. Douglas Hogate Sr. called in one last code 3 before retiring after 28 years as a police officer with the Salem City Police Department.
The emotional and momentous occasion was recorded on video and posted to the Salem County 911 Center's Facebook page March 24.
As Hogate, 50, made his last sign off, his son, Douglas Hogate Jr., was on the other end.
"It is a great pleasure to announce that after 1,800 hours on this date, after 28 years of service, my father, Salem City police Sgt. Douglas Hogate Sr., badge No. 612, is retiring and giving his final Code 3," Hogate Jr. said on the call. "It is my honor ... to acknowledge this Code 3 to the greatest man I know."
WXTF reported that the son has worked for nine years as a dispatcher at the Police Department.
Hogate's daughter, Jenna Keen, recorded the bittersweet moment.
"My dad did one final ride through Salem and it was cool because it was like (it was) just us kids again," Keen said. "We grew up at the police station and he's been an officer all of our lives. It was an emotional time."
Hogate told NJ.com that retirement will be an adjustment.
"Once you're a police officer, it changes you," he said. "Even on my days off, I'll be looking out. It's just a mentality you get into."
Hogate's son appreciates the time and sacrifice he made to be a police officer and a father.
"Throughout the years growing up, my dad raised us," Hogate Jr. said "It's not so much the fact that he sacrificed and spent years being a police officer but he did that in addition to raising three kids."
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