New memorial stone honors slain Valdosta police officer
Published 12:00 pm Friday, June 28, 2024
- Tommy Crews, brother of slain police officer Lee Crews, and his wife Gena attended Friday’s ceremony for a replacement memorial stone.
VALDOSTA — For Tommy Crews, Friday’s ceremony at the old C&S Bank building on South Patterson Street was bittersweet.
Crews was working for the sheriff’s office in 1984 when he heard his brother Lee, a Valdosta police officer, being dispatched to a robbery scene downtown on a police scanner.
“It was heartbreaking,” he said of the night he lost his brother. “At 11 p.m. I had to tell my mother Lee was dead.”
Friday, Tommy Crews and dozens of friends and family members converged on a memorial space at the old bank building for the dedication of a new memorial stone for Valdosta Police Department Officer Lee Anthony Crews, slain in the line of duty Jan. 24, 1984.
Tommy Crews said the original memorial stone had been vandalized and needed to be replaced.
Valdosta Police Department Officer Lee Crews was patrolling alone on Jan. 24, 1984, when he was called in to assist after a break-in was reported at the former Nicky’s Restaurant in Downtown Valdosta.
He parked his car near the drive-through windows of the former C&S Bank and apparently found the break-in suspect at the northwest corner of the bank building, according to an edition of The Times published Jan. 25, 1984.
A scuffle broke out, and the suspect got Crews’ gun away from him and shot the officer in the shoulder at close range.
More than 60 officers from the police department, the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, the state patrol and even the fire department converged on the C&S building and began a manhunt of the area. The firemen brought ladders for the lawmen to use in searching rooftops.
Lee Crews died shortly afterward at South Georgia Medical Center.
Tommy Crews said the suspect had one hand in handcuffs when he was captured.
The suspect, Sinclair Caldwell, 24, of Valdosta, pleaded guilty to a murder charge in June 1984, only a day before his trial for Crews’ death was to begin. He received life in prison as well as 35 years for related charges.
An endowed scholarship in Lee Crews’ name exists in Valdosta State University’s criminal justice program, Tommy Crews said.
