DETROIT (WXYZ) — The dispatch calls are chilling. The scene was chaotic.
Detroit Police Chief James White tells 7 Action News, “I just had 2 years on the job, 3 years on the job and that’s one of those days that will live in your brain forever.”
“It’s exactly like it happened yesterday,” says Mark Diaz who is a retired Detroit Police Officer and former President of the Detroit Police Officers Association.
Detroit Police officers close in on a van with kidnappers inside.
The men inside shoot out the back window with AK-47 assault rifles. 3 officers are hit. One died and two others would survive. That was in December of 1998.
Yesterday, Officer Lloyd “Mike” Todd passed away. His passing is in the line of duty.
7 Action News Reporter Kimberly Craig was on the scene in 1998 and reported then, “Officers Shawn Bandy and Lloyd Todd, two dedicated police officers shot in the line of duty. Officer Ramon Child was also injured in the weekend ambush.”
Diaz says today, “We were all kids back then for lack of a better term, in our 20s and some of them in their 30s. Shawn Bandy who was killed that day. He and I grew up together, went to high school together.”
Lloyd Todd was a hero to fellow officers, especially those in the 9th Precinct. Detroit Police Chief James White tells 7 Action News “he was paralyzed on the left side of his body. Lost his right eye. And he has lived a very challenged life ever since.”
The picture of Lloyd Todd will be added to the wall of fallen Detroit Police Officers where Shawn Bandy’s has been. They are the men and women who don’t come home. “So that’s the unfortunate reality of law enforcement. In order for us to do good, we have to confront the bad,” Diaz says.
The third officer injured is Ramon Childs who is still with DPD, working in records. “You’ve got people who are committed to this work. What he has gone through and showing up every day with what he has been through is incredible.”
The hero’s funeral for Officer Todd is in the planning stages.
