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Escambia County Sheriff's Office Honors Their Fallen

Dave Dunwoody

Fifteen Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies who have died in the line of duty from 1923-2004 were remembered Thursday, at the annual service at Escambia County Sheriff's Office headquarters.

Family and friends of the fallen deputies, along with law enforcement personnel from various agencies and some elected officials, gathered first in the training room at the Sheriff’s Office on “L” Street, and were greeted by Sheriff David Morgan.

“Today we gather to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice,” Morgan said. “During these precious moments without them, we long even more for their presence. It is in those moments of sadness though, that a sign of their presence returns.”

The audience viewed a short video, featuring some of the lawmen’s families talking about their experiences with their loved ones. Then it was outside to the front of the complex, at the memorial to the fallen deputies.

A blue rose was placed on the memorial for Colonel Rodney Eddins, who passed away just over a year ago; and a white rose was placed to honor those wounded in the line of duty.

Red roses were then placed on the memorial by the fallen officers’ relatives and friends, assisted by two Escambia County deputies, as Sheriff Morgan read off their names in chronological order. Then followed a roll call through the ECSO radio system, announcing their names, their failure to respond to their call signs, and their end of watch – the day on which they died. A 21-gun salute, a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace,” and the benediction concluded the ceremony.

Four of the 15 deputies honored died of heart attacks while on duty. Morgan was asked about how modern-day personnel’s health and physical fitness are monitored.

“They do annual physicals and of course our health care plan,” Morgan said. “They’re given time during the duty day, if they want to go work out we allow a certain amount of time three days a week.”

And while deputies’ well-being is a priority, Morgan concedes the biggest killer of law enforcement officers is not guns and weapons, but rather the stress and rigors of the job, which he says are inherent.

“In today’s society, you put on the uniform and badge you’re immediately a target,” said Morgan. “And so, how do you relieve that? The answers is you can’t, because it’s part of what you do.”

As part of their training, Escambia County deputies take part in an active shooter course, and state-of-the-art computer software to simulate “shoot-don’t shoot” scenarios. Morgan, an Air Force veteran, brought much of that branch’s police training techniques to ECSO when he took office in 2011.

“We’re a paramilitary organization [but] a lot of people don’t want to say that, Morgan says. “We have a hierarchy, we have a rank structure. It has to be that way because of the nature of the work. We don’t do things by committee. When you’re in a gunfight that’s not an invitation to debate.”

But despite the training, sometimes somebody makes that ultimate sacrifice. Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan  says memorial services such as Thursday’s is essential to fostering the understanding that, as a family that is the Sheriff’s Office, if one should fall in the line of duty, they will not be forgotten.