APD officers remember colleague killed in Afghanistan

Roberson was one of eight people -- seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer -- who died  Wednesday in a suicide bombing at a remote U.S. base near Khost, Afghanistan. According to an Associated Press report, the bomber was a 36-year-old doctor recruited by Jordanian intelligence to support U.S. efforts against al-Qaida.

The doctor was not closely searched when he arrived at the base because of his perceived value as someone who could lead American forces to top al-Qaida leaders, several news organizations reported Monday. The Jordanian intelligence officer who was his handler believed the man had been "turned" in Jordan and could be trusted, according to the reports.

The bodies of Roberson and his six slain CIA colleagues were flown to the United States on Monday.

His friends in Atlanta say Scotty Roberson was a man of endearing contradictions. .

"He was whip smart," Atlanta Police Det. Cathy Lyons told the AJC on Monday. Yet he was proudly lowbrow, embracing the slapstick of the late British comedian Benny Hill. One of his favorite movies was the forgettable John Ritter flick, "Skin Deep."

His former colleagues say Roberson could patrol some of Atlanta's meanest streets, working sex crimes and narcotics, and then take center stage on a bar stool without skipping a beat.

"All you've got is the guys you work with, and Scott understood that very well," said Mike O'Hagan, a former APD officer who roomed with Roberson while both were on the force.

"He was easily one of the funniest and brightest guys I knew," O'Connor told the AJC. Roberson worked his way up the ranks, starting as a patrol officer in the notorious Zone 1, then got his detective's shield. "He was a cop's cop."

Roberson was hired straight out of Florida State University, where he graduated with a degree in criminology. His friends didn't know what drove him to police work.

"Cops don't talk about that kind of thing," Lyons said. No one questions whether he made the right choice.

Lyons called her friend "a natural leader without trying to be." It didn't take him long to earn his colleagues respect.

But he was restless, and in the late '90s he briefly left the force to work as a United Nations security officer in Kosovo. When he returned he was back on patrol duty. He had always wanted to be a soldier, O'Hagan said, though asthma and back problems prevented him from joining.

"He wanted something bigger," O'Hagan said. Soon after the war in Iraq started, Roberson secured work as a contractor, hoping to one day land with the CIA.

"He didn't have their training but impressed them with his smarts," his old roommate said. "And they knew he could do the job."

After toiling for several years in Iraq as a contractor, Roberson was finally hired by the CIA in August, O'Connor said.

It was the camaraderie that appealed to him most, friends say. He was one of the founders of the Metro Atlanta Police Emerald Society, whose motto is "cops taking care of cops," O'Connor said.

Now they want to make sure his family is taken care of.

"I had never heard him sound so happy as he was when he found out Molly was pregnant," O'Hagan said. "... [Now] we're trying to see what is needed."

Roberson would've done the same for his friends, O'Hagan said.

His old colleagues will hold a memorial service for him Wednesday in Atlanta, then travel to Ohio for Roberson's funeral in Akron on Saturday.

They take solace in knowing he died while living out his dream.

"If he hadn't died there or on his motorcyle, he would've been disappointed," O'Hagan said.