For those able and interested in attending, contact me and we will find a time and place to meet up.  On average officers and non LEO mourners will be represented by depts from 20-25 states at LEO services.  It is completely apporpriate for non LEO's to show up to pay their respect.  As someone that has been on a fire dept that has lost a member in the line of duty I can attest that it helps the family to have people show up.  His funeral will be held at First Baptist Church, which is (appropriately enough) on Church Street in Stamps on Wednesday at 2:00pm.  


Original Post

Quoted: This has to be one of the hardest nights of my career...  it rained here all day, and was just generally dreary...  earlier, about 8:30pm, a couple of our county deputies were responding to a domestic...  a city officer in the neighboring town came up on one of the deputies units upside down in the ditch...  single vehicle accident...  I immediately responded, and was second on scene...  the deputy, who has been a friend of mine for several years, had been thrown from the vehicle, and was able to talk to us...  unfortunately, he did not survive his injuries...  it is rough on all of us who responded and worked the accident, and on all of us here in general...  this is a small county, and there are only about 20 full time officers between all agencies in the county, so the loss of even one of us is felt as a personal loss to us all...  I will try to update this when I have had more time to gather my thoughts...  my prayers are with his family...   Lafayette County...  Deputy Stacy McMurrough, I was and am proud to call him my friend.  When I moved here a few years ago, I met Stacy.  He was our city water superintendent, and on the volunteer fire department (as most of us officers are).  Stacy got into law enforcement as a reserve, and has been working the past 2-3 years as a part-time deputy for the county, as well as his full-time city job, and being one of the 2 captains on our 24-man fire department.  We all loved it when he was able to get out and work with us, and he probably averaged 2 shifts a week on the road.  Stacy was also an avid sportsman, hunter, and shooter.  He will be missed by the entire community.   He leaves behind his parents, a brother, and a sister, as well as other family and friends.   As for the accident, it was caused by a combination of things.  We are not sure but do not think that he was wearing his seat belt.  His unit held together well through striking and breaking a utility pole and flipping and was for the most part intact.  The cage roll bar did a good job of keeping the passenger compartment intact even though the car landed on its roof.  I cannot stress this enough for those reading, always wear your safety belts. www.ktbs.com/news-detail.html?cityid=1&hid=27873 www.texarkanagazette.com/articles/2006/02/12/local_news/news/news03.txt