He chafed working as a cop at Georgia Southwestern State University. Officer Jody Smith wanted more.
Sarah-Kathryn Smarr thought about that Wednesday as one speaker after another extolled her fiancé, killed along with his best friend while answering a call. “It’s ironic,” she said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“He said there wasn’t enough action being on the university police department.” Smith, 25, answered a domestic disturbance call Dec. 7 at an apartment near the campus in Americus. There, he encountered his best friend and roommate, Americus Police Officer Nicholas Smarr.
He also came in contact with Minquell Lembrick, 32, Lembrick, say police, shot both officers in the head. Smarr died almost immediately; Smith lingered for more than a day before succumbing to his wounds.
Lembrick ran after the shootings, touching off a manhunt that ended the next day. As heavily armed officers closed in on an Americus house, said police, Lembrick used his weapon a final time. He killed himself.
The killings raised to seven the number of Georgia officers killed in the line of duty this year. They also accounted for two of six police shootings that took place in the past week.
The deaths also left two young women heartbroken. Officer Smarr – no kin to Sarah-Kathryn Smarr – had a 21-year-old sweetheart, Rachel Harrod, who anticipated getting an engagement ring from him.
On Sunday, Harrod stood by his grave. Wednesday, it was Sarah-Kathryn Smarr’s turn. She stood by her man’s casket, remembering.
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
They’d set the wedding date: May 20 of next year.
Their vows would cap a romance that began 10 years earlier, when a high school junior named Jody approached her in the parking lot of Americus High School. He asked for her phone number. She gave it to him. In time, she gave him her heart, too. They went to proms and graduations, to baseball games and parties.
When she enrolled at Georgia Southwestern, he joined the police force to take advantage of class discounts offered to university employees. He wanted to get a degree in criminal justice, then join the state Department of Natural Resources.
“He loved being outside,” she said.
And loved her. Two weeks ago, she talked with her sweetheart about the hazards police face every day. She fretted, but knew it was what he wanted.
“It was always a fear of mine – him getting shot.”
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