We remember law enforcement officers who have been killed while on duty.
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund keeps statistics on law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty — from those killed by gunfire while trying to arrest a criminal, to those killed in traffic accidents while on the job, to those who suffered heart attacks during training exercises. As of July 25, 2011, the total number of law enforcement officer fatalities was 108 compared to 96 at the same time in 2010. Here we honor a few of the recently fallen officers shot and killed while on duty.
Deputy Sheriff Kyle D. Pagerly was shot and killed June 29, 2011, in Albany Township, Pennsylvania, while attempting to serve an arrest warrant. According to his obituary in the Reading Eagle, Pagerly had been a Canine Deputy Sheriff with the Berks County Sheriff’s Department since 2006.
“He also worked part-time with the Western Berks Regional Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Task Force and was a lieutenant for the Spring Township Fire Department.”
Pagerly, who served with the U.S. Army in Kosovo and Iraq, had run “a marathon in 2010, completed numerous triathlons and was training for an Ironman Triathlon later this year.”
Memphis Police Officer Timothy Felton Warren was shot and killed July 3, 2011, while responding to a domestic violence call. Warren “received his bachelors from Delta State University where he was on the Mississippi All State Football Team” and “was a member of the Christian Motorcycle Association, according to his obituary in the Commercial Appeal.
“He loved Blues Music… Picking a guitar and gun collecting were also hobbies… most therapeutic was his workshop where he enjoyed metal work, leather work and welding.”
Warren even made his own badge holders and holsters.
Sergeant Darrell Cervandez Curley, of the Navajo Nation Police Department in Arizona, was shot and killed June 26, 2011 while responding to a domestic disturbance.
“He died as a warrior,” his family wrote for the obituary that ran in the Farmington Daily Times.
Deputy Sheriff Roger Rice, of Laurens County, South Carolina, was shot and killed July 14, 2011, while searching for a murder suspect.
He was the 44th law enforcement officer to be killed by gunfire in 2011.
This post was contributed by Alana Baranick, a freelance obituary writer. She was the director of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers and chief author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers before she passed away in 2015.
