North Carolina's law enforcement officers risk their safety every day to uphold the laws of this state and protect its population. Some of these officers make the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives in service to their communities.
The N.C. Department of Justice will honor these fallen heroes Friday at the statewide Peace Officers Memorial Day Ceremony. All week, cities and counties have been honoring the officers who have been killed in their own police departments as part of Peace Officers Memorial Week.
This year, the statewide ceremony takes place at 11 a.m. at the Englewood Baptist Church in Rocky Mount. Attorney General Roy Cooper will open the memorial and Chris Swecker, Corporate Security Director for Bank of America and former FBI Assistant Director, will deliver the keynote address.
Four officers in particular, who died in 2007, are being remembered:
Officer Alan Silver, 23, had served the Rocky Mount Police Department for a little more than a year when he sustained life-threatening injuries in a traffic crash April 29, 2007. He died three days later. Silver was responding to a robbery call at a local bank.
According to a news release sent out by the attorney general's office, Silver was a "model employee and committed officer." He was just one class short of getting his college degree and he had been the class leader of Rocky Mount's 10th Police Academy.
Officer Sean Clark, 34, and Officer Jeff Shelton, 35, of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department were responding to a disturbance call at an apartment complex when they were killed. They encountered the suspect in the parking lot. He shot them both at close range. They died the next morning -- April 1, 2007.
Their killer was arrested and charged.
Clark had been on the force one year when he was killed. He is survived by his wife and two sons, Brayden, 4, and Winston, 11 months. Winston never met his father. He was born two months after Clark's death.
Shelton was a former U.S. Marine, who had been on the force for six years. He is survived by his wife and will be "forever missed" by the police department.
Officer Jason Campbell, 35, died in a traffic accident while responding to a suspicious activity call in Greenville. He had served the Greenville Police Department for five years when he was killed April 14, 2007. He had previously been a deputy with the Pitt County Sheriff's Office.
He is survived by his wife, daughter and step-son. The news release states that Campbell "enjoyed life to the fullest through both work and play."
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (www.odmp.org), eight officers died in the line of duty in 2007. There are no officer casualties reported so far in 2008.
