HOLLY SPRINGS, Ga. — Tears, embraces, memories, and crowds of mourners filled Barrett Park Friday night for fallen Holly Springs Police Officer Joe Burson, and for Burson’s wife, who was there with them.
Joe Burson was killed in the line of duty Wednesday night.
Candlelight--in the last hour of daylight.
Prayers--in the deep ache of grief for Officer Burson, and in support of his wife, Marykate Burson.
As she arrived, she wept seeing the hundreds of people who had gathered in the park for the vigil.
Dozens of police and Sheriff’s patrol cars ringed the field, with their blue lights flashing a salute.
Officer Burson’s car, front and center, with his official department photo on the windshield.
Burson, 25, was killed 48 hours earlier, about a mile from the park, during a traffic stop.
The suspect was also killed.
Joe Burson became a police officer just last year.
His pastor, David Stein of Revolution Church, spoke of how Burson was a light to everyone he met.
“We are a community that is crushed,” Stein said. “We are a community that is heartbroken. He brought a bright light into every place he went. He was dew on the grass. He brought refreshment, he brought that joy, everywhere he went. We have lost a hero. We have lost a man that, from every account, was a great man who loved well, who cared well, who was incredibly brave.”
Burson’s supervisor, Lt. Mike Hale, said that, for Burson, becoming a police officer was a childhood dream come true. Burson lived to help people, Hale said, and loved it when he got to host school children, having as much fun as they did when they crawled all over his patrol car playing with the lights and siren.
Hale pledged to Marykate the enduring support of the department and the community.
Hale said that it is hard, now, for many officers across the country to see where they stand in the cities where they serve, but that in Holly Springs, there is a mutual respect that helps everyone.
The chaplain of the Holly Springs Police Department, Phil Young, said no one ever saw Burson without a smile on his face, even arresting people with a smile and a word of encouragement.
Young, along with Stein, spoke of Burson’s deep faith as reason for hope amidst the grief.
“For this young man,” Young said, “this is not goodbye, this is just ‘see you later.'”
The community is raising money online for Officer Burson’s family.
His funeral will be Monday, at 2 p.m., at First Baptist Church of Woodstock.