GREENWOOD, S.C. (AP) - It’s been 30 years since Otis Grier Jr.’s dad died, but he still fondly remembers how the man polished his uniform shoes and belt before beginning his patrol with the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office.
Grier’s dad died in a wreck on his way to aid another officer on April 2, 1987. Grier Sr.’s portrait hangs on the sheriff’s office’s wall, beside deputy Charlie Rodgers, who died when shot on duty in 1973.
“Time flies, it doesn’t seem that long ago,” Grier said about his father’s death. “Segregation was still in then. Matter of fact, when he started with the city then, black cops couldn’t arrest white folks.”
Grier said his father started with the Greenwood Police Department in the mid to late 60s, before moving on to the Newberry Police Department and Newberry County sheriff’s office, then coming back to Greenwood’s sheriff’s office - where he stayed for the remainder of his career.
“My dad, like a lot of police officers, learned to insulate his family from what he does,” Grier said.
He didn’t talk often about his job, as far as Grier can remember. But he remembers how proud Capt. Otis Grier Sr. was of his duty - shining his shoes and buffing his belt every night before bed.
A few days before his dad died, Grier said they were sitting together at the breakfast table. The son - who was about to ship off with the U.S. Army to South Korea - heard his father talk about the job for the first time in nearly two decades.
“He said that once, when he first began, life was just not that dangerous,” Grier said. “At that point in time, it came to be that people were keeping track of how many calls involved guns.”
On the night Grier arrived in Korea, he got a message from the American Red Cross that his dad had been in a wreck. His mother told him over the phone that it looked like his dad would recover.
“Two days later there’s a knock on my door - it’s my boss and the chaplain,” he said. “First thing you want to do is go home, but it’s about 18 hours from Korea.”
Grier said he found comfort in one thing: his dad had been driving to help another officer who needed backup. The other officer was fine, but as if Grier’s father had predicted it - the call involved a gun.
“My dad said and knew for years that every day he puts on that uniform is another day he might not come home,” Grier said.
His father’s dedication and growing up in law enforcement culture, Grier was inspired to become an officer himself. Starting in 10th grade, he began with a police cadet program in Greenwood, doing ridealongs nearly every week. He went into the Army’s Military Police before turning 21, then joined the Greer Police Department before returning to the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office, where his dad worked.
More than a decade after his father died, Grier was walking through a store when an older gentleman tapped him on the shoulder.
“He said ’I knew a man who works for the county who looks just like you,’” Grier said with a laugh.
After explaining his dad had been a deputy, the man told Grier his dad arrested him - and took him to the state detention center in Columbia. When Grier Sr. saw the man in ankle cuffs and hand cuffs chained to his waist, he told officers to unshackle the man. He even let him ride in the front seat all the way to Columbia.
Grier said he went to Washington, D.C. one year to see officers’ memorial services, and to show his own son Grier Sr.’s name on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Peace Officers Memorial Day and National Police Week, he said, help keep the memories alive.
“Even though he’s not here,” Grier said, “those memories keep things going strong.”
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Information from: The Index-Journal, https://www.indexjournal.com
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