Nine Georgia law enforcement officers have lost their lives in the line of duty in 2011, matching the state’s toll from 2010 with two weeks left in the year.
Nationwide, officer fatalities are on the rise. A preliminary 2011 report from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund shows deaths in the line of duty climbed 14 percent from last year.
More troubling is the fact that for the first time in 13 years, firearms-related fatalities outnumber traffic deaths, said Steve Groeninger, a spokesman for the memorial fund.
Some say those statistics may reflect an undercurrent of anti-government sentiment that has brought out Occupy movement and tea party protesters alike.
“Law enforcement officers, by strapping a gun to their hip and putting a badge over their hearts, they are targets,” Groeninger said.
Cheryl Daly said she and her husband, Clayton County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard J. “Ricky” Daly, were both aware of the perils of police work. After all, at 55 years old, Daly was a 20-year law enforcement veteran. But neither suspected when he walked out the door on July 20, 2011, that he would never again be coming home.
“Even though we knew the dangers, the importance of the job was predominant,” Cheryl Daly said. “He loved working with people and just feeling like he was trying to help.”
Daly was shot twice while conducting a traffic stop. The suspect, Veasna Jonathan Bun, 17, has since been arrested and charged with murder.
While firearms-related deaths eclipsed traffic-related deaths at a national level, fatalities linked to automobile accidents were the primary cause of Georgia’s officer deaths in 2011.
Five of the state’s nine officer fatalities resulted from vehicle pursuits or wrecks that occurred while officers were patrolling or responding to crimes. The remaining four officers deaths were attributed to gunfire.
Doraville Detective Robert Shane Wilson, a newlywed husband and father to an 8-year-old boy, was one of those automobile deaths. Wilson was driving to the scene of a predawn home invasion on Nov. 14 when a wrong-way driver slammed into his vehicle on I-20 in DeKalb County.
Police say they later determined that Gene Jones, who was charged in that crash, had a blood alcohol level of 0.14 (nearly twice the legal limit). He is out of jail on $265,000 bond awaiting trial.
Officer Gene Callaway, a Doraville police spokesman, said Wilson’s mother and stepfather had both been law enforcement officers, and from a young age “he definitely wanted to get into the family business.”
Wilson started working for the department as a communications officer at age 19, eventually joining the department as a sworn officer. He became a detective about two months before his death.
“He was definitely one of our rising stars,” Callaway said.
Lately the Georgia Public Safety Training Center has been focused on providing more training based on real-life scenarios to help learn from past officer fatalities and prevent new ones.
Just Thursday, the agency sponsored a class called LEOKA (Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted) that focuses on street survival, defensive tactics and criminal apprehension. About 100 officers attended, said Tim Bearden, who was appointed director of the training center just six weeks ago.
“My goal when I was appointed, one of the things we wanted to see is more realism in the training, more hands-on public safety officers,” Bearden said. “The more hands-on training we can provide, the better off we are.”
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Georgia officers killed in 2011
Deputy Sheriff Willie Amos Cammon
Heard County Sheriff’s Office
Died: March 3
Cause of death: automobile accident
Senior Police Officer Elmer “Buddy” Christian
Athens-Clarke County Police Department
Died: March 22
Cause of death: gunfire
Sheriff James “Dee” D. Stewart
Spalding County Sheriff’s Department
Died: July 3
Cause of death: automobile accident
Deputy Sheriff Richard “Ricky” Joseph Daly
Clayton County Sheriff’s Office
Died: July 20
Cause of death: gunfire
Probation Officer Tiffany Danielle Bishop
Georgia Department of Corrections
Died: Aug. 31
Cause of death: gunfire (accidental)
Deputy Sheriff Derrick Whittle
Union County Sheriff’s Office
Died: Sept. 18
Cause of death: automobile accident
Deputy Sheriff James “J.D.” Paugh
Richmond County Sheriff’s Office
Died: Oct. 23
Cause of death: gunfire
Police Officer Terry Mae Lewis-Fleming
Albany Police Department
Died: Oct. 28
Cause of death: vehicle pursuit
Detective R. Shane Wilson
Doraville Police Department
Died: Nov. 14
Cause of death: vehicular assault
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Georgia Officer Fatalities 2006-2011
2006 7
2007 6
2008 7
2009 4
2010 9
2011 9
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