‘Guardians of life and property’

Rome remembers fallen officers Friday at Peace Officers Memorial Day service

The mournful wail of bagpipes signaled the start of the 23rd annual Peace Officers Memorial Day service in front of Rome’s Joint Law Enforcement Center on Friday.

“We remember and celebrate those who honored the highest call and paid the ultimate sacrifice,” said Master of Ceremonies Robert Smyth.

Tribute was paid to 20 officers representing nine different agencies during the ceremony.

Families of at least a dozen of the fallen officers laid white roses on the stark, black stone monuments to their loved ones while officers from the different agencies laid roses on the markers for those whose families were unable to attend.

Oscar Carver was an employee at the Floyd County Prison in November of 1929. His daughter Betty Blackwell, who was 7 years old at the time, remembers vividly what happened.

“A prisoner had two guards held up down there and daddy was a guard and walked up to him and said, ‘Don’t do that, put that gun down,’” Blackwell recalled. “He said, ‘Carver I’m going to kill you’ and shot him.”

Blackwell, with the assistance of her sons Tom and Warren Blackwell, placed the rose on Carver’s monument.

Emily Cordle Milstead, wife of Roy Eldon Milstead, a Sheriff’s deputy who was killed June 18, 1965, recalled being at work in the nursery of Floyd Medical Center when she learned that her husband had just been brought in.

“It was terrible to go down to the emergency room and see my husband there,” Milstead said.

Her niece Cindy Cordle Proctor actually placed the rose on Milstead’s monument.

Randy Johnson of Rome placed the rose on his greatgrandfather Joe Johnson’s monument.

“This means a whole lot to me. I didn’t get the whole history of it until much later in life,” Johnson said. “I’ve been coming every year for the last eight or nine years.”

His great-grandfather died in the line of duty in October of 1921.

Mark Lowe, a cousin of U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Scott E. Deaton, who was killed in June of 1999, said he felt it was important for someone in the family to be at the ceremony to pay tribute to his service.

“I think it’s important to the family to have someone here who still remembers him,” Lowe said.

Mayor Bill Collins read a joint Rome-Floyd County proclamation calling all of the honorees “guardians of life and property.”

John Bailey Floyd County Police Department Capt. Greg Dobbins salutes his mother Myra Hunt and sister Shannon Boatner at the memorial dedicated to his father Carl Dobbins, who was also a Floyd County police officer. Families of those officers who have fallen in the line of duty as well as local officials gathered to honor their memories at the 2019 Peace Officers Memorial Service on Friday.

John Bailey Rome Police Department Pfc. Aaron Thacker performed taps at the close of the 2019 Peace Officers Memorial Service on Friday.

John Bailey A multi-agency honor guard stands watch over the Law Enforcement Memorial Plaza during the 2019 Peace Officers Memorial Service on Friday.

John Bailey K. Scott McClure, the chaplain of the Rome Police Department, gives the invocation at the 2019 Peace Officers Memorial Service.

John Bailey Rome police Lt. Josh Kerce retrieves the colors after the 2019 Peace Officers Memorial Service on Friday.

John Bailey Betty Blackwell (center), along with her sons Tom and Warren Blackwell, places a flower on the memorial for her father Oscar Carver, an officer at the Floyd County Prison who was killed while on duty in 1929.

John Bailey Jane Byars (foreground) and members of the Rome Area Flute Ensemble provide musical accompaniment at the 2019 Peace Officers Memorial Service on Friday.