Published: April 13, 2007 08:37 am            

April 13, 2002: Pulaski’s day of great sorrow

Five years ago, Sheriff Sam Catron was gunned down

The April 14, 2002, edition of the Commonwealth Journal was supposed to be a typical Sunday paper — speckled with articles about The Center for Rural Development, funding for tourism efforts, and a feature story about a well-loved, 90-year-old physician.

The feature story was mine, and I was quite proud of it — not because of any work I had put into it, but because the doctor was an excellent interview.

Features are my favorite. I’d rather leave the bad news alone.

I had worked on the afternoon of April 13. The reporters on board at the time rotated weekend shifts — and it was my turn. The springtime weather made it difficult to want to work that day. It had been an easy shift, however, and I was able to go home long before nightfall.

Just as I began to get settled in at home, I received an unusual phone call from the editor of a nearby county’s newspaper. He had been listening to a police scanner, and had heard portions of conversations which led him to believe something may have happened involving Sheriff Sam Catron — possibly a shooting.

After a brief phone conversation with our newspaper’s editor, I found myself headed down East Ky. 80 toward the scene of an incident about which I knew very little.

I tried to get additional details on my way to Shopville, but phone lines at the Sheriff’s Department were busy — and, eventually, I lost cell phone service. I was only able to ascertain that, yes, Sheriff Catron had been shot.

The details would have to be discovered when I arrived.

I knew Sam. He was always in the middle of everything. If there was a wreck, a robbery, a drug bust — he was there.

As I drove toward Shopville, I convinced myself that he had been grazed by a bullet, probably in the middle of an arrest. No one would hate Sam enough to want to kill him. And, besides, Sam was indestructible.

I was already envisioning the newspaper stories in the months to come. Whatever his injuries, we would follow his recovery. We would celebrate his eventual return to duty. Now that would make a great feature story.

I knew I was getting closer to the scene when I saw a helicopter circling above.

They must be searching for the shooter, I thought.

Eventually, the helicopter flew away.

Later, I would learn that the helicopter was waiting to transport Sam to the hospital. On the ground, however, those who were with Sam knew he was already gone. The helicopter had flown away because its services weren’t needed.

East 80 was blocked by a throng of law enforcement vehicles.

As a reporter, I was used to parking my vehicle and walking in order to get closer to the scene of an incident. I remember thinking it was strange for police to be blocking the main roadway when the shooting had occurred on a side road.

That might have been my first clue that this incident was more profound than I had first imagined.

I approached a police officer who had been blocking traffic.

“How’s Sam?” I remember asking.

The officer said nothing — just shook his head.

Sam was gone, and I was one of the first to know it.

Reporters thrive on being the first to know. This time, I didn’t want that burden.

Sam had always been easy to work with — a reporter’s dream — fast to return phone calls, thorough in his information, and helpful in his explanations. He was also good-natured, relishing a good laugh or a hearty handshake.

It was easy to consider him a friend.

It was overwhelming to think that I would be involved in breaking the news of Sam’s death to an entire county full of individuals who also considered him to be a friend.

I lingered near the scene for a while, and then drove to an area where I could get a cell phone signal. A few newsroom employees had already gathered at the office. I called and broke the news to them — ironically — just as they were tuning in to the “America’s Most Wanted” episode featuring Sam’s pursuit of radical militant Steve Anderson.

I also called my mother — a knee-jerk reaction to help me prepare for what I knew would be a horrible evening. The moments surrounding that phone call would be the first of very few snippets of alone time in which I would be able to let myself cry.

Soon it was back to business. I spent several hours that Saturday evening driving back and forth from the scene of the shooting to the courthouse to First Christian Church, where crowds had gathered to try to learn more about the night’s events.

The Sunday paper would no longer be a typical one. Neither would any of the papers for the rest of the week.

I remember walking into the sanctuary of the church, in its former location downtown. A minister was praying for Sam, and for the doctors who would be working to help him.

These people don’t know, I thought.

When the minister took a break, I pulled him aside, introduced myself, and told him the news.

News.

My profession.

I didn’t want to be the person responsible for telling these people such horrible news.

The next five days are now a strange blur of both stark and clouded memories. I remember strange details — like what I was wearing that Saturday. I remember the brown and yellow ribbons which were handed out in Sam’s memory, the sickness in my stomach I felt when I learned that Sam’s political opponent was involved in his death, and the unseasonably warm temperatures on the day of the funeral. I remember the sadness hitting me hardest when I watched the sheriff’s helicopter break away from the others that had been flying in formation over the Somerset Cemetery.

Covering the murder of Sheriff Sam Catron was a major event in my professional life, but the profoundness of his death didn’t just affect newspaper reporters.

The law enforcement community — on a national level — was shaken. Sam’s family faced a tragedy that was, sadly, too familiar to them. And Pulaski County lost a hero. Gestures of grief and remembrance were spread across the entire county like nothing else I’ve ever seen.

Everyone lost. Everyone was saddened. And everyone bore the burden of his death.

I think Sam would have been very proud of the unity displayed in his county during those days five years ago.

Over the years since Sam’s death, I have been asked many times what has been the most memorable news event I’ve ever covered.

To this day, my answer remains the same.

It started on the evening of April 13, 2002 — and lasted all week.

In the days following Sam’s death, stickers began appearing in the windows of cars throughout Pulaski County.

“We will remember you, Sam Catron,” they read.

Five years later, those stickers can still be seen — and the promise still rings true.

We do still remember you, Sam.

        

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