The flag outside the Holly Springs Police Department flew at half-staff Thursday as the Cherokee County community mourned the death of a young officer killed hours earlier in the line of duty.
A makeshift memorial at the base of the flagpole grew throughout the afternoon as a steady stream of residents piled on bouquets of flowers and paid their respects to 24-year-old Joe Burson.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Burson was killed late Wednesday after being dragged by a vehicle during a traffic stop, the GBI said. The driver of the car, 29-year-old Ansy Dolce, was shot and killed by the officer before the vehicle careened off the road and into a ditch, officials said.
At a somber news conference Thursday afternoon, Holly Springs police Chief Tommy Keheley described Burson as a model officer. He had been with the department for about a year and a half.
“If you had the ability to clone police officers, you would have wanted your officer to be Joe Burson,” said Keheley, who spoke with the slain officer’s wife late Wednesday. “He will be greatly missed.”
He called it the worst day of any police chief’s job.
Burson joined the Holly Springs Police Department in January 2020 and was formally sworn in more than two months later after completing his training, records show. It was his first law enforcement job.
He was killed shortly after 11 p.m. after officers stopped Dolce for speeding in the area of Harmony Lake Drive and Hickory Road, GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles said. Burson was dragged down Hickory Road during the stop, but managed to fire shots at the suspect.
Officers rendered aid to both men at the scene, but those efforts were unsuccessful. Burson was pronounced dead at WellStar Kennestone Hospital and Dolce was pronounced dead at Wellstar North Fulton, officials said.
Wanda Winant was devastated by the news, which rocked the community of about 10,000 residents nestled between the larger cities of Woodstock and Canton.
“This is one of the safest places to live,” said Winant, who works at the Exxon station on Holly Springs Parkway, the main gas station in town. “I don’t even lock my doors, my car, nothing, you know? When something like this happens, it’s just sad.”
Winant said she has worked at the gas station for five years and visits with officers nightly as they stop in before the start of their shifts. Often, she said, an officer will park at the church across the street and keep watch at closing time.
“They all come in. They say, ‘Hello, I’m on duty tonight. OK, I’ll be watching after you.’ And that means a lot to me,” she said.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
On Thursday afternoon, grim-faced police officers and firemen pulled up just outside police headquarters, climbed out of their vehicles and stood at attention. Several of them then placed a blue wreath beside the memorial outside.
J.R. and Ramania McDonald of Canton watched the scene unfold.
“It was a show of respect,” said J.R. McDonald, a retired U.S. Army master sergeant. “His name will live forever. Our county is standing tall as it should.”
McDonald remembers meeting Burson at a local gas station.
”He reminds you of a young private in the military,” he said. “You see so much of yourself in these people because that was once us. And he was just full of life.”
Credit: Jeremy Redmon / jredmon@ajc.com
Credit: Jeremy Redmon / jredmon@ajc.com
Burson is the first Holly Springs police officer to die in the line of duty and the fourth killed this year in Georgia. He was the first law enforcement officer in Cherokee County to die on the job since Aug. 2, 2003, when Deputy Sheriff Timothy Wayne Woodard was killed in a crash. He was 26.
Burson went out of his way to get to know the community, Keheley said, often welcoming children into his patrol car, answering their questions and letting them switch on the lights in his cruiser.
“He was just a genuinely good individual,” the chief said of the young officer. “It was a simple stop and the bottom line is, every bit of this could have been avoided.”
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
On Thursday morning, Burson’s widow Marykate changed her profile picture on Facebook to a photo of the Holly Springs police logo with the “thin blue line” through it. About a dozen people reached out to offer condolences as news of her husband’s death spread throughout the community.
By mid-afternoon, someone dropped off a sign outside the officer’s growing memorial that read, “We love you Joe and Marykate.”
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Assistant GBI Director John Melvin said he and Burson attended the Police Academy together and formed a deep bond during their 10-week training session.
“I lost a good friend today. It hurts more than I can express,” Melvin wrote in a Facebook post that included a photo of the graduating class.
He called Burson a “fundamentally good man” who gave his all and cared about his classmates.
“I am indebted to Joe. When I struggled with some aspect of physical training, Joe would offer words of encouragement or say just the right joke to get me laughing,” Melvin wrote. “He did that for all of us in Session 8.”
Officials said Burson was wearing his body camera at the time of the incident. The GBI is analyzing video from his patrol car as well as footage from other officers at the scene, authorities said.
The incident is the 42nd police shooting the state agency has been asked to investigate this year.
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
— AJC staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.
