Officers Down

Thursday evening after we attended the Roy Barnes lecture we walked a block away to Glover Park, the center of downtown. We heard law enforcers were paying a tribute at the park to their own that had been in killed on duty over the years.




It was a salute to  fallen officers. It was a memorial loaded with protocol.

And if you notice the camera shaking, besides my regular palsy, I had to deal with holding the camera with one hand while saluting.  It seems that if my hands were naturally trembling and my camera hand was trembling trying to keep the camera balanced the two trembling might cancel each other out, but it doesn't work like that.

One of the fallen listed on the handout is Officer John Hood. He died June 25, 1960. I remember that date and the next couple of days well. John Hood lived on Roswell Road, about where the Marietta Parkway would be built and go over it years later. Gene Latimer, my friend Larry, and I were hanging out at Varner’s. The time was getting late and I thought it was time for me to leave and turn in. I had to go to be at work early the next morning at the Big Apple grocery store. I left.




After I left Gene and Larry got involved in a drag race going down Roswell Road. At about the same time they were traveling at racing speed approaching the bottom of the hill where Marietta Parkway would be built, John Hood was pulling out his driveway. He went home for dinner. He pulled out onto Roswell Road. Apparently he forgot to turn on his headlights. He and Gene were killed instantly in a head-on collision.