Peace Officers Memorial Day 2021

Law enforcement has been much in the news over the past 15 months as calls for reform have increased in light of questionable actions captured on officer cams and personal cellphones during arrests and police shooting events. And it's been 6 years since I have written about the seven law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty in Beaufort County's past. Thankfully, no law enforcement personnel have been killed since 2002 here. For that we should all be grateful as police work is a dangerous occupation to hold. The post below is updated from Connections posts published in 2009 and 2013. As to be expected some of the links in those older posts are now broken. Accordingly, I have deleted the content of each with a referral to this post. -- Grace Cordial 5/7/2021 

Statistics vary somewhat but the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty since the United States was founded in 1776 is now approaching 25,000. The Officer Down Memorial Page provides a figure of 24,872 since 1776; The National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum website begins counting in 1786 and states "more than 22,000 law enforcement officers had died in the line of duty." If you round up the country's age to 250 and do the math, on average there are approximately 100 police officers killed per year.  

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation which designated May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week in which that date falls as Police Week. The Memorial Service began in 1982 as a gathering in Senate Park of approximately 120 survivors and supporters of law enforcement. Decades later, the event, more commonly known as National Police Week, has grown to a series of events which attracts thousands of survivors and law enforcement officers to our Nation's Capital each year - until COVID. COVID-19 mitigation efforts impacted the National Police Week, just as it did countless other events as fighting the disease took precedence from March 2020 and into 2021. 

National Police Week is co-sponsored by the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum, the Fraternal Order of Police and Auxiliary (FOP) and Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS). The Police Week website says "The three host organizations remain committed to their missions and to honoring the fallen law enforcement heroes from 2019 and 2020, while making sure their survivors are supported." This year the in-person ceremonies to honor fallen law enforcement officers is being delayed until October in hopes that they can secure the necessary permits for a large public gathering.

Among the fallen law enforcement officers who lived and/or died in Beaufort County who are honored on the monument are: 

BENJAMIN PAUL CARDEN
5-E: 20
End of Watch: January 6, 1925
Beaufort County, South Carolina, Sheriff's Department

ELMO FRAZIER LANGFORD
49-W: 20
End of Watch: June 6, 1927
Beaufort County, South Carolina, Sheriff's Department

RICHARD V WOODS
22-W: 18
End of Watch: August 19, 1969
South Carolina Highway Patrol

BRUCE KENNETH SMALLS
5-W: 2
End of Watch: September 27, 1985
South Carolina Highway Patrol

RUSSELL RICHARD BELL
4-E: 10
End of Watch: April 17, 1990
Beaufort County, South Carolina, Sheriff's Department

Walter Dennis wrote a poem "Tribute to Deputy Russell Bell (Killed in the line of duty.) for inclusion in his self-published pamphlet of poems and short stories, Street People:

I didn't know him
Nor did many of the thousands
Who came that day to say goodbye.
But we felt his presence in his widow's eyes
Who must carry on and continue on with life.
We could feel his love in his children's faces
Who were left to grow up
With only memories of a great man.
We could see his compassion in the deep furrows
Of his mother's face who had lost
All that was precious and all that was good.
We could feel his strength
Etched in the faces of his friends
Who had been touched by his short life.
And in his peers, we could feel his dignity and his courage
Standing proudly beside him
But we all thank him for what he did.
For each of us he gave his life
So we might live a better one.
We will honor your memory and forever remember your name.
For you are the man who gave so much
To those of us you hardly knew.

DYKE A COURSEN

48-W: 23
End of Watch: January 8, 2002
Beaufort County, South Carolina, Sheriff's Department

DANA LYLE TATE SR
13-E: 23
End of Watch: January 8, 2002
Beaufort County, South Carolina, Sheriff's Department

To learn a bit more about the circumstances of some of these deaths, visit the "Fallen Heroes" page of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office website. 

The BDC has several vertical files on the topic of law enforcement and law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty: Murders - Woods (1969); Murders - Coursen-Tate (2002); Police; Beaufort County Sheriff's Department and of course, lots of information and publications by and about legendary Sheriff Ed McTeer (who, just to be clear, was not killed in the line of duty). Just be sure to contact me (gracec@bcgov.net; 843-255-6446) to make an appointment to come into the Research Room to review these and other BDC materials.