Fairmount, law enforcement mourn death of retired chief

CALHOUN — The Fairmount community is mourning the death of retired Police Chief Bruce Kelley, who passed away on June 27. Kelley, 63, served for nearly 20 years as Fairmount’s police chief beginning in the early 1980’s.

According to Gordon County Chief Deputy Sheriff Robert Paris, Kelley first served as a policeman in Fairmount. He also spent time serving as a policeman in Calhoun and as a deputy under Sheriff Pat Baker with the Gordon County Sheriff’s Office before returning to the Fairmount Police Department in the early 1980’s, where he would serve as the police chief until 2000.

Kelley was known in Fairmount as an honest policeman who served the small community in a way that was similar to a popular fictional sheriff you’d find on TV serving a small town called Mayberry.

“His policeman’s heart was in his home community,” said Paris. “I worked with Bruce on many, many occasions. Bruce had an almost Andy Griffith-ish approach to policing the small town of Fairmount.”

That didn’t mean Kelley couldn’t be tough when he needed to be. “Bruce was personally responsible for the arrest of a major drug dealer in eastern Gordon County in the mid 1980s,” said Paris. “A dangerous man who was subsequently imprisoned. I vividly remember Bruce laughing off the death threats he (and other officers) received afterwards.”

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