Ryan Baird knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: A police officer.
“When he was 6 or 7 years old, and we would be on the train and he would be just mesmerized by the officers he saw along the way,” said his mother, Vera Baird.
It was his dream job. So when the New York native called his parents in 2010 and told them he’d been accepted into the Atlanta police academy, there were mixed emotions.
“I was happy for him, but quite concerned too,” said his mother, who lives in Newark, N.J. “I prayed for him every day, but I had to be happy for him because that was his dream.”
Ryan Adrian Baird’s dream lasted almost four years. He was working in the department’s airport community service division.
Monday evening, according to the Georgia State Patrol, Baird, 38, who lived in Douglasville, was on Mann Road north of Stockmar Road. He was on his way to pick up one of his two daughters, said his wife Mandy Baird. It was just after 6:30 p.m. when his 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee left the roadway in a curve. Baird, who was off-duty at the time, died from injuries sustained in the crash.
A funeral is planned for 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Burial will follow at Mount Harmony Memorial Gardens, Mableton. Murray Brothers Funeral Home, Cascade Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
Everyone who knew Baird knew he wanted to be a police officer. He started working on an associate’s degree in criminal justice, his mother said. He got jobs that were somehow related to law enforcement, his wife said. The two met in 1998 at a law firm in New York; he was a file clerk and she was a receptionist.
In 2005 the couple decided to move from New York to Georgia. For the first year after the move, Baird worked as a corrections officer, before he got a job at a law firm in midtown, his wife said. In 2010, while working at the firm, he put in an application with the Atlanta Police Department.
“Things moved very quickly from there,” she said. “And once he found out he’d been accepted, it seemed like he called everybody he knew. He was so happy.”
One of those calls went to Gary Banks, a childhood friend who still lives in New York. Banks said Baird had grown up to be a family man, and he had no doubt he was also a good police officer.
“He was working hard,” Banks said. “And I could tell just by talking to him, he really enjoyed what he was doing.”
Baird not only loved his work, but he also enjoyed the people with whom he worked, his wife said.
“He loved his fellow officers,” she said. “He was such a people person. He was a caring person and he truly cared about the officers he worked with, and the people he encountered along the way.”
In addition to his wife of 10 years and his mother, Baird is also survived by his three children, son, Jailall Ally of Pensacola, Fla., and daughters Ryana Baird and Lundon Baird both of Douglasville; and his father, Keith Baird of Newark, N.J.
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