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| The Police Officers Monument -- Oglethorpe Avenue
A memorial to local police officers killed in the line of duty was placed in front of city police headquarters in the Oglethorpe Avenue median at Habersham Street. The base was placed in 1964, the statue in 1982.
The memorial is a stainless steel statue 5 feet 8 inches tall of a uniformed policeman -- city patrolman R. I. Ketterman was used as the model -- mounted on an inscribed Elberton blue granite die about four to five feet in height. The style is rigidly cubic, like Egyptian or archaic Greek statues, and is entirely freestanding. The die bears the outline of a policeman's shield or badge on all four sides, as a cartouche. Inside this are the names of police officers killed in the line of duty in Chatham County from 1869 onwards.
During a murder trial in 1963, Nell Fountain, president of the Police Officer's Wives Association, promised the wife of slain Patrolman Harry H. Akins, that something would be done to perpetuate the memory of police killed in the line of duty. The Association formed a monument committee, began to research the records to find the names of officers killed in action, and to publicize their efforts to erect a monument. Mr. Graham Leggett offered to donate and carve the granite die. G. W. Woods showed Mrs. Fountain a sketch of his proposed statue, which she liked. Their odyssey to get the statue cast into bronzed lasted for years as they had no money. Eventually, the model was burned in an attempt to cast it.
It is the first and perhaps the only, monument dedicated to the memory of police officers who have died in the line of duty. |