Police Officer Daniel Alexander Hodgson, Chatham County Police Department, Georgia

Police Officer Daniel Alexander Hodgson

Chatham County Police Department, Georgia

End of Watch Saturday, March 20, 1976

Daniel Alexander Hodgson

Police Officer Daniel Hodgson was shot and killed as he and four other officers attempted to subdue a man who had been firing a gun in a residential neighborhood on Stuyvesant Street.

When the officers arrived the man ran into his house and hid in a closet. As the officers searched for him inside the home he pointed the shotgun out of the closet and fired two shots. The first shot wounded two of the other officers. The second shot struck Officer Hodgson in the chest, killing him.

The suspect was taken into custody eight hours later. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Officer Hodgson and to 30 years for the aggravated assault of three of the other officers.

Officer Hodgson had only served with the Chatham County Police Department for six months. He was survived by his parents.

A street in Savannah was named Hodgson Memorial Drive in his honor.

Bio

Age 24
Tour 6 months
Badge Not available

Incident Details

Cause Gunfire
Weapon Shotgun; 12 gauge
Offender Sentenced to life

Most Recent Reflection

View all 17 Reflections

Alex, it's Me, Jan Autry-Munroe-nowRobinson. I am sorry for waiting so long, I did not know about this site until today, after I dreamed about you. Your Bonaventure Grave is opposite the fountain back in the Greenwich section, from my beloved son, Thomas Gordon Autry, Jr., who died on November 26, 1977, 20 months and six days after you. For years I have brought flowers to your place from Tommy's, and talked with you about everything. Oh, that day when our co-worker and friend from Broad Oaks Hospital called to tell me what had happened. I THREW the phone across the room, and when the newspaper report blasted the front page, it burned my fingers. YOU, sweet, loving and kind, who wanted to use his psychology education and work with us at the Charter facility, should not have been there that day, that man was WAY too far gone to reason with. Your Dad brought little Mandy to visit me a few months later, since his Pharmacy was right across from the hospital, she was you all over again. You visited me in a dream after my husband and I planted a Dogwood sapling in front of the station. You were sitting among the blossoms of the full grown tree, still beautiful, swinging your legs and smiling, and said, "Jan, don't worry about this old ghost, I am just fine!" GOD LOVES YOU TO THIS DAY, DARLING FRIEND,
AS DO I". Now seventy-five, I look forward to seeing you in Heaven someday, with my son and all you FINE ANGELS.

Jan Robinson, (Nee Autry-Munroe
A good friend and co-therapist at Charter Broad Oaks Hospital in Savan

July 9, 2017