By JAMES BROWN
Glasgow News 1
James Duff’s name is not among those of officers who died in the line of duty, but it could have been.
Deputy Duff introduced Barren County Sheriff Kent Keen, who was the guest speaker for a Police Officers Memorial Ceremony at the Glasgow Police Department on Friday, May 8. Keen talked about the challenges that law enforcement officers face each day, including the possibility of dying in the line duty.
Duff faced that day nearly 30 years ago when he and Keen were Glasgow police officers.
“I was on duty getting ready to leave to go on vacation,” he explained after the Friday ceremony. “We got the call of shots fired on Georgetown Lane.”
Duff said he knew the address because the police department had responded to it several times. Despite the fact he could have been done with his duty that day, and gone on vacation, he knew he needed to respond to the call.
“Myself and David Graves were the first two officers at the scene. We parked, got out of the vehicles down [the street] from the residence and heard more shots,” Duff remembered.
The house faced L. Rogers Wells Boulevard and the police officers were concerned the person in the house was firing at cars on the bypass. He said they approached the house from the right side because it was dark. They then made their way to where they thought the person was.
“We’re thinking he’s on the back deck,” Duff said. “As we get to the corner of the house … we step out of the darkness, I get shot in the back with a 12-gauge [shotgun].”
The man was shooting from inside the house through a window. The yard had a slope that allowed him to be at a higher elevation, which was why the officers thought he was on the back deck.
Duff said he knew immediately he had been shot, but that his training kicked in.
“I returned fire, I’ll never forget it. I shot four rounds, David Graves shot five rounds back toward the direction of the fire. It stopped him from shooting again, which probably saved my life even though we didn’t hit him,” he explained.
He was also wearing a bulletproof vest, which absorbed many of the pellets from the shot gun shell. Some of those pellets remain in his body, including one in a ventricle.
That pellet is a reminder of how close Duff came to joining the names read during the ceremony Friday.
“Luckily, that pellet wound up in the side of the heart that if it pumped out, it would pump out into the lung and not into my heart or into my brain,” Duff said Friday. “If it had been in the other side of the heart, if it had dislodged and pumped out, it would have went into my brain, caused an aneurysm, and [I would have] died immediately.”
Major Terry Flatt read the names during the ceremony of Glasgow officers and Barren County deputies who have died while on duty:
Policeman Robert J. Thurman — September 18, 1914
Town Marshal Harry Collins — July 18, 1926
Deputy Sheriff Wayne “Bull” Branham — January 26, 2011
Deputy Sheriff Ernest Franklin — April 2, 2014
Deputy Sheriff Rusty Anderson — March 18, 2018
The memorial stones for fallen Glasgow Police Department officers is pictured outside the department office. James Brown/Glasgow News 1
Key Facts
– Glasgow Police Department hosted a Peace Officers Memorial Ceremony
– Several local and state officials spoke during the event
– Barren County Sheriff Kent Keen served as guest speaker
– Sheriff’s deputy James Duff introduced Keen at the ceremony
– Afterward, Duff recounted being shot while working as a Glasgow police officer
– The ceremony focused on honoring fallen officers and the risks law enforcement face
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