Fallen officer’s father waiting for justice

Editor’s note: This is the second-part of a series on two Laurens County men whose sons were law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. These stories are done in remembrance of the more than 24,000 law enforcement officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in recognition of National Police Week.

Dylan Harrison was not even supposed to work the only shift he did as a part-time officer for the Alamo Police Department.

Sitting at a table in his house in Dudley, Jeff Harrison recalled that his son’s first shift for the Alamo police was supposed to be Saturday morning – not Friday night. 

“Somebody was going to have to pull an extra shift, and he didn’t want them to do that,” Harrison said. “So, he told them he was coming in.”

Dylan, a member of the Oconee Drug Task Force, and his wife, Heather, had a son – Brody. Dylan wanted to make extra money for the family so he prepared to go to his first shift as a part-time officer on the night of Oct. 8, 2021. 

That day just so happened to be Jeff’s birthday. He and his wife, Kathy, had been out to dinner that evening. On the way back, Dylan called them and asked them to stop by and see them before he headed off to Alamo. 

“We had just got finished eating, and I was full and tired,” Harrison said. “We went on to the house. It was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Harrison’s regret can be heard in his voice as he continued to speak, saying, “Now I think, man, if I would have gone to that house and postponed him a hour or two, my son may still be here.”

October 9, 2021

The ringing of the phone woke Harrison up. He recalled the time of the call – 12:08 a.m.

He was told that Dylan had been shot in the shoulder and was being transported to the hospital in Vidalia. Harrison and his wife quickly got out of bed, got dressed and jumped into the truck that would take them through the fog to the hospital.

“I was running like a bat out of hell trying to get to Vidalia,” Harrison said. “We get to the emergency room and they took us into a small room. They told us that the doctor would be with us in a little bit.”

This left Harrison with a bad feeling. That feeling was confirmed when the doctor came in to talk. 

“They told me my son had not been shot in the shoulder,” he said.

What led up to the shooting started from an incident about a hour before at the Alamo Circle K across the street from the police department. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Harrison had arrested a man for a traffic violation. Harrison asked the man for his name and identification. He refused. The man got into a verbal altercation with Harrison, which escalated to the man pushing the officer. Harrison attempted to place the man under arrest and had to use his taser. 

Not long after this, Dylan called and talked to his wife. Heather later told Dylan’s parents about that conversation.

“He told her he was worried,” Harrison said. “She tried to get him to leave. He didn’t get the chance.”

Around 1:01 a.m. Saturday, Dylan walked outside the police station. According to the GBI, that is when Damien Ferguson, a friend of the man Dylan had recently arrested, shot Dylan. The GBI believed the ambush-style attack on Harrison was retaliation for the incident and arrest of the man.

“That was senseless,”  Kirk Dinkheller said after hearing what happened to Dylan. “Just like what happened to Kyle.”

Dinkheller’s son, Kyle, a Laurens County sheriff’s deputy, was killed during a traffic stop in 1998. His killer, Andrew Brannon, was put to death in January 2015.

“(Brannan) was going to kill someone that day. It just happened to be Kyle because (Brannan) was tired of taking orders. The last thing on (Dylan’s) mind is that somebody is going to ambush him when he walked out of the police department.”

Ferguson was taken into custody without incident a few days later by the state of Georgia SWAT Team and the U.S. Marshals Service Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force during a search warrant at his house in Alamo. When the arrest was made, officers used Dylan’s handcuffs on Ferguson. 

Those handcuffs are currently in the Harrisons’ house.

Waiting for the trial

This October will be five years since that tragic night. Ferguson pleaded not guilty to murder, aggravated stalking, bias-motivated intimidation of a first responder and criminal damage to property. 

He is awaiting trial. Harrison said there have been four hearings, and at the previous hearing the judge said that enough was enough. 

“He wanted this to move on, but that has been almost a year ago now,” Harrison said. “It’s been tough. This is a death penalty case, and I was told those take longer. I was asking why is this dragging? It’s frustrating.” 

Dinkheller agreed.

“A law enforcement officer was killed, that should take priority over other cases,” he said.

Harrison has stayed in touch with Oconee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Tim Vaughn and his staff about his son’s case. He called them a month ago wanting to know its status. 

Vaughn’s office just tried a death penalty case against Royheem Deeds, who was accused of shooting and killing Eastman police officer Tim Smith on Aug. 13, 2016. That case ended in a mistrial. 

Harrison understands that Smith’s family wants justice. His family does, too.

“I hate to be this way,” Harrison said. “I know (the DA’s office) is trying to do the best they can, especially with Smith and his family in Eastman.”

Dylan was a lot like Kyle

While listening to Dinkheller talk about Kyle, Harrison could not help but shake his head. Though they did similar things in their lives, they never knew each other.

“It’s funny hearing Kirk (Dinkheller) talk about Kyle because our two boys were basically the same,” Harrison said. “They were young and had just started their careers. Dylan grew up here in Dudley. He loved hunting and fishing, and he loved people. He cared about people and helping people.”

Dylan played football at West Laurens High School. where he met Heather. Harrison remembered when Dylan and Heather started dating. She would come over to their house where the family got to know her better. He recalled Dylan telling him Heather was the girl he wanted to marry.

“She did the same things he liked,” Harrison said.

Dylan volunteered as a firefighter. He wanted to help people. While in high school, he went through a training course to become a volunteer firefighter. He worked with the station at Dudley and, really, wherever a station needed help.

“When Dylan was here we had a scanner,” Harrison said. “We would be sitting around and we would hear him flying down the steps because he heard something on the scanner, and out the door he would go. I could remember other times when Kathy and I were getting ready to go to bed and he would let us know that there was going to be some bad weather and he planned to stay up and go out if somebody needed help. That is who he was. He was just a good kid.”

Dylan worked with a fire department in Savannah for about a year. He decided to make a change in vocation, and some of his other friends were already in law enforcement. He returned and went through mandate.

“When he graduated from mandate we all went to the ceremony,” Harrison said.

One of the leaders in the ceremony said that a number of those graduating from that class would not live “to see an old age.”

“It struck me then, and now I think about it often,” Harrison said. “Even while he was in law enforcement, you are always scared and always concerned. This is a crazy world that we live in.”