Harrison was shot dead in Middle Georgia last weekend while on his first part-time shift at a new agency. He had found the second job to supplement his full-time duties with a drug task force elsewhere in the state.
Before Harrison’s funeral on Friday, his relatives remembered a man who was always drawn to the civil service and led his wife and young son to good performance.
He is among at least 111 U.S. law enforcement officers who died on duty of non-medical reasons this year, according to a nonprofit tracking such deaths. “(Harrison’s father) went out of his way to get him to apply for an electrical job,” because he had just received his electrician certification, Harrison’s mother, Kathy Harrison, told CNN subsidiary WGXA this week.
“(But) he told me a few weeks ago … ‘Dad, I love what I do. I love helping people,'” the father, Jeff Harrison, told WGXA.
Harrison’s uncle shared a similar reminder: “He told us he wouldn’t be happy if he wasn’t a law enforcement officer,” Michael Cauley told the TV station. “That’s exactly what he loved.”
“The kindest, sweetest soul you would ever meet”
Harrison, 26, of Dublin, Georgia, was previously a full-time agent on the Oconee Drug Task Force.
But to make extra money, his family says he recently took a part-time job as a police officer in the Alamo, about 50 kilometers from Dublin and 160 kilometers southeast of Atlanta.
During his first shift at the Alamo, Harrison was fatally shot and killed outside the police station at around 1 a.m. on Saturday, police said. Investigators believe Harrison was “ambush-style” shot hours earlier in retaliation for an encounter in which he used his taser against a known associate of the man who is now incarcerated and charged with murder, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a press release with.
On Monday, police vehicles escorted a hearse containing Harrison’s remains from the Atlanta office’s crime lab to Dublin.
There, his parents and other family members stood on a street and watched the hearse go into town. WGXA then interviewed Harrison’s parents and Cauley.
The 26-year-old was jovial and a prankster, Cauley told WGXA.
“He was just always happy and smiling. You see the pictures of him, he has these two dimples and that just sums up how he was. He was just a very happy, happy guy. He will be missed. “
His survivors also include his wife, Heather Milks Harrison, and son, Brody Cash Harrison.
“I wish you all could have known him,” Kathy Harrison told WGXA. “He was the kindest, sweetest soul you would ever meet.”
The suspect faces murder and other charges
Authorities have arrested Damien Ferguson, 43, from the Alamo on suspicion of killing Harrison. He was charged with murder and prejudiced intimidation of first responders in connection with the shootings and was exacerbated by a separate incident, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Ferguson made a first appearance in court on Tuesday but had no opportunity to make a plea. He hadn’t listed a lawyer for him on Thursday, the officer’s office in Laurens County, where Ferguson was detained, said.
Harrison took the part-time job at the Alamo to make more money “to buy a new house,” Uncle Michael Cauley told WGXA.
But Cauley said he has a deep affinity for community service.
“He joined the volunteer fire department when he was 16, 18 years old,” Cauley told the TV station. “He’s only devoted his life to service, and that’s what it was about him.”
Harrison had several public security jobs as an adult. He had been a full-time firefighter for Southside Fire Department on Georgia’s Wilmington Island before working as an 911 operator for Laurens County, according to his obituary.
He had also been a part-time officer with Middle Georgia College, the City of Cochran, and the East Dublin Police Department.
Harrison’s funeral is scheduled for Friday morning at the DuBose Porter Conference Center in Dublin.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp offered condolences to Harrison’s family on Twitter on Saturday.
Alamo police chief Karen Zanders has “never seen the grief I have felt since Officer Dylan Harrison was killed in our small, quiet town,” she said.
“Officer Harrison was the husband, son and, most importantly, father of a six-month-old boy,” Zanders told reporters on Sunday.
“His life was taken from him because he just did his job,” she said. “We will never forget Officer Harrison and the fact that he made the ultimate sacrifice to keep each of us safe.”
CNN’s Rebekah Riess and Gregory Lemos contributed to this story.
