Roosevelt Police Chief Shot Dead During Arrest

Roosevelt Police Chief Killed
July 7, 2001  SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Roosevelt Police Chief Cecil Gurr was shot and killed Friday night while trying to arrest a suspect in a domestic dispute. 

Gurr was among the officers who responded to a report of a man beating a woman at about 8:30 p.m. in a convenience store parking lot. The officers surrounded the couple's pickup truck and the man stepped out carrying a rifle, police said in a statement released Saturday morning. 

The man began shooting at the officers, who returned the fire, police said. 

After allegedly killing the police chief, the man got back into the truck and forced the woman to drive away. Police chased the car, stopping it about five blocks from the scene, according to the statement. 

After struggling with police, Lee Roy Wood, 35, of Vernal, was arrested on state and federal parole violations. The Uintah County Attorney's Office is reviewing possible charges against Wood for Gurr's death, said Chief Deputy County Attorney Ken Wallentine. No decision is expected before midweek. 

The police were not releasing information about Wood's past criminal record. 

Wood was not injured in the shootout, said Sgt. Steve Hatzidakis. The woman also was not injured as a result of the shooting, but may have been hurt during the alleged domestic dispute. The relationship between the two was not yet clear Saturday. 

Gurr, 50, had been police chief since the mid-1970s and was one of the longest-serving police chiefs in Utah, Hatzidakis said. He was active in church and community organizations. 

"He was a good man. He was a credit to law enforcement," Hatzidakis said. "It's a terrible loss." 

Gurr's father said the police chief had always cared about helping those around him. 

"He wanted to help everybody. Anybody who knows him would say the same thing," said Beryl Gurr. "Everyone respected him and he respected everyone." 

Rep. Gordon Snow, R-Roosevelt, who was Gurr's neighbor until four years ago, served with the police chief as a Boy Scout leader and was Gurr's one-time bishop in the Roosevelt 8th Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

"He was just a good, no-nonsense, down-to-Earth, dedicated father," Snow said. "If his boys were in Little League, he was a Little League leader. If they were in Scouts, he was a Scout leader. They are a very close, tight-knit family, and Cecil reflected that in all he did. 

"It's going to be a very big challenge for all of us to get over this." 

Roosevelt, a city of 4,000, is about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City. 

 What made you think it couldn't happen here? Police officers know there isn't a magic kingdom that is safe and secure, where alcohol and drugs aren't abused, where people don't assume they can exert power and Control over others by using brute force to intimidate, where predatory jerks don't take advantage of the weak.
 Every officer knows that a violent death is a possibility. It's just that nobody thinks ?it? will happen here, or now. It catches everyone by surprise. When ?it? happens in a small town, to someone who has dedicated his life to the community, the loss is felt by everyone as it should be.
There will be mention made of Cecil paying the ultimate price in his service to the community, but for a police officer and his family, no one event constitutes the lull price.
 There are installments that come due on the debt. Police officers are the first ones to get to almost everything. Accidents? Officers listen to the sighs of the dying and have to wash their hands in the blood of the injured. They feel the loved ones- pain, then have to do the paperwork. They are there when spouses break teeth, bloody noses and bruise the bodies of the person they have pledged to love.
 They pick up the kids who have been beaten and burned by those who gave them a hellish life. They have to deal with the shattered lives of sexually abused kids and those who defile them. They watch people commit slow suicide by alcohol and are witnesses as drug abuse tears apart families and destroys lives, while those who make a profit from the misery are sentenced to two weekends in the county jail.
 They are hit, kicked and spat upon. They are forced to be silent bystanders as some lawyers and judges make a mockery of the meaning of justice. They are political pawns as budget games are played, fighting every year for funds to a job well and safely, most often with little support from the public, or elected and appointed officials who see police departments as an overly expensive necessity that has to be tolerated. All the while, every action they take gets smeared on a specimen slide and examined in great detail by the domestic policy and legal experts in the local cafes.
 A significant chunk of the price paid by officers is that they have to give up part of being human in order deal with the humans they come into contact with. They realize that there is precious little innocence in the world. They know that honesty isn't something to take for granted. They learn that, for some, there is no sanctity in the body and life of another human being.
 In a world of legal sharks waiting to go on a feeding frenzy, they have to deal with the misery with a cool, abnormal detachment, then go home and mow the yard. Many tend to avoid public gatherings because they know too much about too many people to want to be in their presence when they don't have to be. The job is a tantalizing mistress, taking much, but giving little.
 Paying the ultimate price is a debt load shared at least equally by officersí families. Cops work nights, weekends and holidays, then have court, training and meetings on their days off. They miss ball games, recitals and school plays. They miss family dinners, reunions and vacations, anniversaries and birthdays. They give that time to serve others, knowing they will never get it back.
 Cecil didn't pay an ultimate price on one night. He has been paying the price for many years and now the job that he loved has coldly required him to give the rest of his time. As has always been the case, his family will share heavily in paying the debt, as will the families of all the officers who will be going to work today.
You will see officers gather from all over the state to pay tribute to Cecil at his funeral, not because of his death but cause of his life and the sacrifices they know he madeóthe same sacrifices they understand only too well. Every one of those officers knows that, but for the grace of God, it could have been his or her funeral a couple days after ìthatî night. Every one of them will be grateful that they have more time to spend with their families and vow not to take that time for granted, although they will soon wrap themselves back up in the specter of the job and perhaps not remember that commitment.
 They will go home, strap on the badge and the gun and go back to work, serving others, as Cecil did for so many years, with a sense of duty that spouses and kids learn to tolerate, but seldom understand. Cecil, these officers, and their families, pay this ultimate price because they believe in what they do, for which the rest of us should be immensely grateful.