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S.C. Highway Patrol Lance Corporal J.B. Baker plays "Taps" at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Memorial at the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy.
Posted on Thu, May. 08, 2008
Grief in the line of duty
Friends and families recall S.C. officers lost in 2007
By LEE HIGGINS - lhiggins@thestate.com
Dorchester County Sheriff Ray Nash crouched to greet 4-year-old Caley Deese at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Memorial service Wednesday.
It was a simple scene that captured the theme of the annual somber commemoration: an extended family embracing those who had lost a husband, a son, a brother — a father.
“We will always be there for you when you need a word of encouragement, a card of remembrance or just a hug to know that you are always loved,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told the survivors of the fallen, speaking for everyone else in the auditorium.
Caley’s father, Dorchester sheriff’s Cpl. Michael Deese, and his Belgian malinois K-9 partner, Sonja, were killed March 9, 2007, when a car crossed the median on I-26 and struck Deese’s patrol vehicle head-on.
The driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel, Nash said, and by some accounts, Deese positioned his car to prevent other motorists from being hit or killed.
“The thing that impressed me about Deese was just his character,” Nash said. “He was a man of integrity.”
Deese was one of seven S.C. law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty last year, according to the S.C. Law Enforcement Officers Association, one of the main sponsors of the annual memorial.
Their names — and those of 89 other current and retired law enforcement professionals in the state who died last year — were read during the service in the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy’s gymnasium.
A bell tolled after each name was read. Family members cried. “Taps” was played.
The service came just four days after one of Nash’s former employees, Orangeburg County sheriff’s Cpl. William Howell Jr., was fatally shot in the neck while responding to a domestic disturbance in the Holly Hill area. Highway Patrol Cpl. Quincy Brown was shot in the arm during a traffic stop in the county the next day.
Orangeburg County Department of Public Safety Chief Wendell Davis, the association’s president, asked the crowd of more than 250 to join him in a moment of silence for the officers and their families in the county.
Lott told everyone he didn’t want to be there — and he knows no one else did — but it was the right thing to do to come together and support each other.
Lott encouraged people in their time of pain, hurt, confusion and doubt to find strength in God.
“He is with us always,” Lott said. “If we let him, he will give us the courage to continue with our lives and not be afraid.
“We have to let him lead us.”
Lott stood when the name of one of his own officers was read.
Deputy Darral Keith Lane died Dec. 14 after he was led on a car chase and suffered a heart attack while trying to arrest three men. He was 41.
Lane’s wife, Sheila, and their two sons — Darral Jr., 23, and Darius, 21 — attended the ceremony. Darral Jr. brought his 3-month-old son, Devin.
Darral Lane Jr. said the bagpipes and tolling bell reminded him of his father’s funeral; his father would have been grateful for the remembrance.
“It showed how they appreciate not just my dad, but all the other law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day,” he said.
“It just meant a lot to my family that he meant just as much to them as he does to us.”
Mary Ann Deese hadn’t visited the Criminal Justice Academy since her stepson’s 2001 graduation, she said.
Deese and his bloodhound K-9 partner, Bailey, were injured in a 2003 shooting while responding to a domestic-violence call. Deese was named Deputy of the Year and was awarded the Medal of Valor that year — both by the S.C. Sheriff’s Association.
Mary Ann Deese, who attended the ceremony with Deese’s wife, Angie, and his father, Harold, was touched by the ceremony’s beauty. Tears welled in her eyes.
“It allowed us to see the true face of law enforcement.”
Reach Higgins at (803) 771-8570.
