CHARLOTTE, NC– Friends, colleagues and the wife of fallen Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Joshua Eyer remembered him Friday as a tough, outwardly strict officer who also peppered friends with “how are you” text messages and showered love with his wife and young son.
Thousands filled the sanctuary of Charlotte’s First Baptist Church for Eyer’s memorial service, badges crossed with black ribbons, as they honored the life and sacrifice of a man who would push just as hard to arrest a murder suspect as one who stole a sandwich.
Eyer was killed Monday, along with three other officers and the suspect they were trying to arrest as they attempted to serve a felon in possession of a gun warrant in a Charlotte neighborhood. The first three officers were killed when they arrived at the house. Eyer was shot as he rushed to help his fallen comrades.
“Full speed, regardless of the cost. That couldn’t be more evident from his actions Monday,” said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Detective Thomas Maddox, who worked in Eyer’s department for five years.
Eyer’s funeral is the first of four around Charlotte following the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement in a single incident since five officers were killed by a sniper during a protest in Dallas in 2016.
Also killed Monday were Sam Poloche and William Elliott of the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections and Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks. Elliott’s memorial service is Thursday at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory. The times for the other services have not been announced.
Eyer’s body in a flag-draped coffin was taken from police headquarters in a horse-drawn caisson three blocks to the church where the late evangelist Billy Graham held his first crusade.
Officers lined the street as dozens marched, playing bagpipes and drums. Behind them, hundreds more Charlotte-Mecklenburg officers walked quietly in dress uniforms to the church where an American flag hung atop the tall ladder of a fire truck.
Eyer and Nicholas Ferreria attended the police academy together in 2017 and ended up in the same division.
“Homicide suspect, he was going to get you. If he stole a sandwich from QT, he would get you,” said Ferreria, flanked on one side by a photo of Eyer in his police uniform and on the other by Eyer with his wife and almost three-year-old son Andrew.
Eyer’s sometimes hard face – the traffic department made him angry because people drove so carelessly and poorly – melted away when you got to know him better and he could not hide the way he loved his wife and son, Ferreria said.
Ashley Ayer met her husband in college. She asked everyone in the pews to help her teach their son what a good man his father was.
“Jozua thank you for giving me a beautiful life and for a beautiful son. We won’t let you down, okay? I love you so much, Sunshine. I’ll see you soon,” she said.
Detective Maddox said he is determined to let Eyer’s son know that “his father died a hero with a full heart” and that the rest of his family knows what he meant to his friends, as well as the community he served. served. Eyer wasn’t scheduled to work Monday, but took a few hours off so he could be free for a family event later.
“Mr. Eyer, I saw you look at your son Monday night and tell him more than fifteen times that you were proud of him as he lay there with the American flag draped over him. I can look across this room today and say that you are not the only one who is proud of your son,” Maddox said.
Charlie Sardelli, Eyer’s best friend since his high school ROTC days, recalled how Eyer spent 10 hours moving belongings into a storage unit when the Sardelli family home burned down.
And whenever it seemed like too long since they’d spoken, Eyer would text him out of the blue and ask, “How are you?”, even during his 12 years in the North Carolina Army National Guard was deployed to Afghanistan and Kuwait.
“We got to see how he changed lives around the world with nothing more than his personality,” Sardelli said.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings honored Eyer as Officer of the Month for April, just a few weeks before he was killed.
“Officer Eyer, you represent everything that is great about this badge that I wear on my heart and this patch that I wear on my sleeve,” Jennings said.
Eyer’s body left the church and was taken in a slow procession of hundreds of police vehicles with their blue lights on to his final resting place in Sharon Memorial Park.
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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina.