SAVANNAH, GA (January 17, 2013): A Chatham County Police officer killed in the line of duty 36 years ago will be remembered Friday when the newest recruiting class of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department holds its latest “Run to Remember.”
Daniel Alexander Hodgson was 24 and had been a police officer for six months when he was killed on Stuyvesant Street in west Savannah March 20, 1976.
He will be remembered as one of the 51 officers who have died in Chatham County when 25recruits graduating from the SCMPD Patrol School lead other officers, volunteers and family members on a 1.5-mile run. The Rev. Charles Roberson Sr., an SCMPD chaplain, will lead a memorial service after the run at the flag pole in front of the West Chatham precinct on Police Memorial Drive.
The recruits from class 263 and 264 will graduate from Patrol School and be pinned as SCMPD officers that afternoon.
Runners will begin assembling at the parking lot near the Mustard Seed Church, 1950 Chatham Parkway, about 9 a.m. and begin the run about 10. Members of the public are invited to participate. Sheriff Al St Lawrence, who was chief of the CCPD at the time of the shooting, will be one of the guest speakers.
Recruit classes began holding the Run to Remember in 2010 to honor those who gave their lives for law enforcement in the county. SCMPD was formed by combining the Chatham County Police Department and Savannah Police Department in 2005.
Hodgson and four other officers were called to the residential neighborhood when a man began firing a gun. The gunman ran into his house and hid in a closet. When officers entered the house, he fired from the closet, killing Hodgson and injuring two other officers. The suspect was sentenced to life in prison for killing Hodgson and 30 years for aggravated assault on the other officers.
Hodgson Memorial Drive on Savannah’s south side later was named for the officer.
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Below is a link that will take you to pictures of the event:
https://picasaweb.google.com/julianmiller1950/RunToRemember11813#
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