nday news so s Su rd’
Oxf o
ce ur
Sunday EDITION
Volume 3 | Issue 28
oxfordcitizen.com
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Inside 2 News
‘Midsummer’s Night’ exhibit coming to North Light.
4 News
Personal touch defines Lagniappe interior design.
ERROL CASTENS
11 Sports
Oxford Police Chief Joey East felt a lot of emotions about the deaths of fellow officers in both Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Front and Center East dealing with officer deaths as best he can BY JOHN DAVIS OXFORD CITIZEN
Editor’s Note: This is the first part of a series of stories with Oxford Chief of Police Joey East. A thin, black elastic band wrapped around the center of the badge Joey East wears on his belt. Outside of the Oxford Police Department, the American flag was at half mast. The mourning band and the flag are unfortunate reminders of the fellow police officers who lost their lives in both Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana this summer. The death of those officers definitely made an impact on Chief East, who not only grew up in a pro law enforcement house, but has spent over 20 years working in the field as well. “I don’t know if you can express in words what the feeling was like,” East said. “Dal-
las, I was watching it live, watching the protests, when it started. Me and my wife were sitting there and she was crying most of the time. It’s kind of surreal and I was trying to watch how they responded and I kind of got caught up in the administrative side of it and how it was working. It was a night where you didn’t sleep because you saw those officers taken to the hospital. It was a horrible deal. The next day up here, it was just a solemn deal. We were outside, holding hands, praying for them.” Police officers are in towns and counties all over the country to protect people, and now they are the ones being hunted. That was the feeling East had as the shootings started to really sink in. “What have we done to get to this point, to where people feel like they need to attack us now?” East said. “The one in Louisiana when that happened, I was actually here (at the OPD). My son and I were going to church and I walked in and Hildon
(Sessums), the lieutenant who runs our Twitter, and he was watching and he says we just had an officer shot. I said ‘Where?’ We didn’t know anything only that we had one down. I asked him to keep me up on it and I went to church. I immediately texted Fish (Robinson) because we were going to his church and said we had an officer shot in Baton Rouge. And then it was two and then three and then six shot. “The whole time I was in church, I was on CNN and watching the phone. It wasn’t a good day and I realized that night I needed to send something out to the chief’s association. When you start writing something, that’s when it just pours all over you and you think that could have been one of my guys, one of my people. The emotions, it’s just raw.” There were a number of things East felt. Anger was near the top. He said all of his TURN TO OFFICER PAGE 3
Merritt a force at goalie for Ole Miss Rebels.
11 Sports
Oxford’s Webb, Harris ready to compete in Junior Olympics.