Officer Leroy Tuttle......My Love

by Teresa Farmer
(Lufkin,Texas,USA)

An example of the particular kind of officer he was....a fourteen year old kid shot him 6 times. He calmly radioed in officer down, suspect fleeing on foot. As the backup cars arrived he continued talking on the radio giving them directions to where the kid had gone. They all assumed it was the young rookie he was training that was shot. The suspect was captured and sent to prison.

But, the backup officers were simply in awe when they discovered the man calling the shots on the radio directing the chase was indeed the officer down. He carried one of those slugs in his temple for the rest of his life as it was in a spot which was too dangerous to attempt to remove it.

After moving on to homicide he got permission for my son to do a ride along. Bubba was 17 at the time, he is 30 now. Yet he continues to have an abundance of respect and awe at the ability Leroy had to walk into a crime scene and figure it out.

At one time he was offered his stripes as part of a proactive movement. He turned them down. He wanted to get them because he deserved them, not because he was one quarter black. He was a highly intelligent man and oh so musically inclined.

He was truly one of the few people I have ever known that I considered a gift from God. And, he is the only man who has ever just loved me. Nothing else mattered. He would tell me how wonderful a person I was, how beautiful I was and how very much he loved me. He was one of the only people in my life who have ever absolutely loved me unconditionally. He was brilliant, heroic, talented, loving, respected, and respectful. The world has lost a true treasure.