Jackson County Sheriff Honors Fallen Officers

Frederick J. Gaston III

ESCATAWPA -- Sheriff Mike Byrd and the Jackson County Sheriff's Department will serve as host for a ceremony honoring police officers and sheriff's deputies who have died during the line of duty.

The ceremony is one of several held in South Mississippi this week and across the United States during National Police Week 2012, from May 13 to 19.

Gulfport police held the first ceremony this week to honor their eight officers who have died in the line of duty. The ceremony was conducted on the steps of the city's Public Safety Center, named in honor of patrol officer Robert J. Curry, who was killed while working a funeral procession in August 2008.

Jackson County's Deputy , a former Gulfport officer, was killed during an armed robbery just prior to Curry in early August 2008. Frederick Gaston III had served as interim police chief in Moss Point before joining the Jackson County Sheriff's Department in June 2008.

Gaston's brother, Fred "Ish" Gaston was an officer with the Moss Point Police Department when he died suddenly of a heart attack during 2011.

Byrd's son, Micheal, died in 2006 during an early morning accident when he tried to avoid a vehicle in traffic, lost control and fell off his police motorcycle and was run over by a dump truck.

Cerermonies for the Fallen Officer's Memorial will be conducted at 2 p.m. at Serene Gardens in Escatawpa.

Frederick Gaston III

http://www.policeone.com/officer-down/1723323/

Gulfport Police Honor Fallen Officers

Obama Meets Fallen Soldiers, Agents at Dover AFB

DOVER AFB, Del. -- President Obama arrived just before midnight Wednesday, Oct. 28, at Dover Air Force Base to meet 15 soldiers and three drug enforcement officers who died in Afghanistan on Monday, Oct. 26, according to media reports.

The dignified transfer was a 'sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices' of the military. -- President Barack Obama

During a solemn ceremony Obama stood in salute with military officers as flag-draped transfer case carrying the bodies were transferred from C-17 cargo airplane to waiting vehicles at the military base in Delaware. Earlier this year, Obama lifted the nearly two-decade-old ban on media coverage of the return of deceased soldiers to Dover AFB.

Only the family of Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute, Ind., permitted media coverage of the dignified transfer of his body.

Obama met with family members of the fallen military and law enforcement personnel prior to the transfer ceremony. According to www.cnn.com, the president said 'the burden of war on U.S. troops and their families will "bear on how I see these conflicts" ' as he decides on whether to send as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

The U.S. Army soldiers and drug agents were among 18 Americans killed this week in southern and western Afghanistan. The service personnel and agents died Monday in separate helicopter crashes. Eight others died Tuesday, Oct. 27, after improvised explosive devices hit their Stryker vehicles during separate incidents.

View photographs of dignified transfer at www.mortuary.af.mil.

According to www.abcnews.com, the three DEA agents killed were identified as 37-year-old Forrest Leamon and 30-year-old Chad Michael, both from Virginia, and 37-year-old Michael Weston of Washington. Weston, like Obama, was a Harvard Law School graduate.