By Josh Mitchell/Informer Publisher

Local law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty were honored in an annual memorial service in front of the Marion County Courthouse Friday morning.

Family members of the fallen officers sat together under a tent for the ceremony, and Columbia Police Chief Jim Kinslow told them that they remain a part of the law enforcement family. Kinlsow and Marion County Sheriff Berkley Hall presented the family members with roses.

Keynote speaker, First Baptist Church of Columbia Pastor Bryant Barnes, said the fallen officers were courageous and did what was necessary in the line of duty. Law enforcement run toward danger while others run away from it, Barnes noted.

Family members of some of the officers were present, including Charles Polk, whose dad, former Marion County Sheriff J.V. Polk, was shot and killed April 22, 1960. For five years after his father’s death, Charles said he made it his purpose to kill those responsible, but now he no longer has hate in his heart.

Bootleggers killed Sheriff Polk because they were upset that he was cracking down on their illegal activity, said Charles Polk. The triggerman was Willie B. McCain, and Hill Thornhill organized the assassination, said Charles Polk, adding that both men are now deceased.

Sheriff Polk’s daughter, Janice Loftin, was also at the service and remembered the night her dad was killed on the front porch of his home. She recalls hearing the gunshots and running outside to check on her dad.

After J.V. Polk was shot, his wife, Olie, who attended Friday’s ceremony, completed his term as sheriff. “It’s an experience I would not have asked for, but under the circumstances I had to do it,” said Olie Polk of being sheriff.

Olie said her husband was one of the best sheriffs Marion County has ever had. “He went in there to enforce the law, and that’s what got him killed. He did not back down.”

Also honored at the service was Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerry Bryant, who was shot and killed after stopping two suspicious males during a burglary investigation in Goss on Jan. 5 1984.

Bryant’s daughter, Julie McDonald, attended the ceremony, and she was only 3 and a half years old when her dad was killed. Bryant’s wife, Debbie Wilkes, was also at the service, and said the murder of her husband was “tragic for me and my entire family.”

The annual memorial service helps keep the memory of the fallen officers alive, said Wilkes, adding that “Taps” always “gives me chill bumps.”

Bryant was killed by the Coleman brothers (their first names are unclear), and one of them was killed in a manhunt the night of the crime while the other hanged himself in prison.

Also honored at the service was former Columbia Police Officer Danny Sellers, who died of a heart attack on duty on Aug. 8 1998. Sellers’ sister, Maxine Williams of Kokomo, said, “We miss him very much,” saying that Sellers worked in law enforcement because he liked helping others.

The ceremony also included a wreath presentation, a gun salute, and a reading of the names of the fallen officers. The others honored were Columbia Police Officers Leonard Conerly, Billy Patterson and Wayne Henebry, as well Deputies Edgar Harrell and Vernon Long.

Conerly was shot and killed on Main Street in Columbia on Dec. 7, 1978 for no apparent reason by Darnell Rawls, who is still in the state penitentiary. Henebry and Patterson were both killed by Howard Earl Polk Sr. on May 8, 1989 when they were trying to serve a warrant on him for a domestic dispute. After killing the officers, Polk was shot and killed by his son at a residence on Dewey Street. Harrell and Long both died of heart attacks; Long passed away Aug. 31, 2002, and Harrell died June 1, 1997.