Terence Avery Green never wanted to be the tough cop. That just wasn’t him.
Green wanted to help his community, and as a young man, he became a Fulton County police officer, a career he had for 22 years. Early Wednesday, he died doing the job he loved, according to his friends. But it wasn’t just a job, and Green wasn’t just any officer.
“He had the gift of being able to understand life,” Carlton Gammage told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Our friend will go down as a hero. Protect and serve, that’s what he was doing. He was protecting and serving.”
Green, 48, was responding to a call in south Fulton with other officers when he was shot in the head. He was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, but did not survive.
News that a Fulton County officer was killed got the attention of Gammage and others in their group of friends. Surely it wasn’t Terence, they thought. Their worst fears were later confirmed.
“Just a senseless shooting, to kill my brother,” Mike Burns said. “This guy was at work, and he was a genuine guy. He’s not that officer that wanted to run around and be a bully. He is not that guy. That’s not his character.”
Beginning in ninth grade at what was then Briarwood High School, Green had a group of friends that were inseparable, even decades later.
As teenagers, the boys spent many afternoons playing basketball at Sykes Park in East Point. Green wasn’t nearly as tall as his friends, but he didn’t let it stop him.
“He thought he had a mean jumper,” Burns said. “He wasn’t very tall, but you couldn’t tell him he couldn’t shoot.”
And honestly, it was a pretty good jump shot, said Gammage, who played basketball in college.
“He, being short, had to learn how to shoot a jump shot,” Gammage said.
After high school, Green went to Morris Brown College, where he studied criminal justice. After college, he joined the police force, got married and became a father to four boys — Marquez, Isaiah, Emmanuel and Samuel. Green later divorced, but went to Florida to visit his sons when he could, his friends said.
Thirty years after graduating, Green and his high school buddies still got together at the park, holding gatherings and barbecues, his friends said. Several of the high school friends enjoyed Christmas dinner together, too.
That’s just the kind of friends they were, Gammage said. Not just high school buddies, but lifelong friends who truly cared about each other. Gammage and Burns said they planned to visit Green’s parents, who still live in East Point, in the coming days.
“We cared about Terence and we still care about Terence,” Burns said. “And we care about them.”
In addition to his parents, an older brother and four sons, Green is survived by other relatives and friends. Funeral arrangements had not been announced late Wednesday.
“I now get it. I get it when they say a ‘fallen solider,’” Gammage said. “We never went to war in my generation. But now, I have a different grasp on going to protect and serve the community that we live in. Our friend was a hero.”
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