An officer and a gentleman
‘He could get along with anybody’ Former police Capt. George Johnson remembered
DANBURY — George Johnson’s life is more than the story of a ceiling-breaker who became the police department’s first black command officer.
Johnson’s life, which ended May 3 at 79 after a battle with cancer, is also the story of how Danbury stayed together in the upheaval of the postcivil rights era.
“He had a tremendous amount of respect for other people,” said Samuel Hyman, a longtime friend and former member of the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. “There was a certain relationship between the police department and the black community that George helped a lot to bridge, because they knew that he represented the department at its best.”
As family, friends and fellow officers prepared to say goodbye to the native Danbury man on Monday, they shared how his personable character inspired a community, and how his professional conduct defined a police department.
“He was a very smart man who could get right down to anybody’s level and get along with them,” said Adolph Andrews, a retired detective who served under Johnson. “He didn’t care who they were — he could get along with anybody.”
Mayor Mark Boughton said Johnson would have been chief had Boughton’s
father, Donald, been re-elected mayor in 1979.
“He was incredibly intelligent and competent, and my father always said he would be the next chief,” Boughton said. “He was an outstanding gentleman.”
As it happened, Johnson retired in 1990 as a detective captain, with the number three rank in the department. That was the highest rank of any black police officer in Danbury until Patrick Ridenhour was appointed chief in 2016.
Although it has been a busy time for the police department with Ridenhour’s marriage on Thursday and National Police Week kicking off Sunday in Washington, D.C., the department plans to give Johnson full honors with a police escort from the church to the cemetery, followed by a 21-gun salute, and a flag folding ceremony.
Mourners will gather at 11 a.m. Monday at New Hope Baptist Church to remember a man who was quiet about his police work but vocal about his concern for people making poor decisions.
“He was very honest and respectful — but if he thought you were not being honest with him or untruthful, he just had no time for that,” said Helen Caddie-Larcenia, who credits Johnson with encouraging her to join the police department in the early 1970s.
Johnson would sometimes tell his younger brother, who was still in school, to warn certain neighborhood kids that if they didn’t stop selling drugs, they were going to get arrested, for example.
“He would say ‘Tell so-and-so I don’t want to have to arrest him because I know his whole family,’ ” said Johnson’s brother, Clifton Johnson, 65. “They would usually say to me ‘Oh, I am not going to worry about that,’ but then when it went down just like he said it would, they would come back to me and say, ‘I should have listened.’ They respected him for that.”
An officer and gentleman
Johnson was the first black command officer in Danbury Police Department history when he made sergeant in 1971, but making history was not Johnson’s first choice.
After graduating from Abbott Technical High School in 1957 he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and might have been a jet mechanic had his allergies not forced him out of his first assignment in Arizona.
Joining the Danbury police force in 1965 turned out to be destiny for a man who learned respect being raised by a preacher’s daughter, and learned love-of-neighbor going to Mount Pleasant AME Zion Church, across the street from his home.
The fair and caring way Johnson treated others at a time when the national fabric was tearing along racial lines distinguished Johnson as a man of character and principle.
“He cared about you personally,” said John McGarry, a retired Danbury police officer. “He was a gentleman, and a good cop.”
Johnson rose from sergeant to captain at a time when opportunities for black men seemed limited, his friend Hyman said.
“When he became Captain Johnson, it made the community very proud,” Hyman said. “Whenever he came up in a conversation, he was Captain Johnson to all of us.”
Johnson continued to be a role model in the last stage of his life, when the doctors said there was little left that treatment could do.
“He always said ‘We can’t be afraid to die,’ ” Clifton Johnson said. “He would say ‘Our day is coming, and whenever it comes we have to be accepting of that.’ ”
The family chose New Hope for the funeral instead of the church Johnson and his brothers were raised in because the Baptist church has a larger sanctuary.
“He loved this town,” Clifton Johnson said. “And he loved the people.”