Garrett Crumby Obituary, Death – One of the two Alabama police officers killed after being shot while responding to a gunshot call at a Huntsville apartment complex has died. “This is a heartbreaking loss for our department, the Huntsville community, and the state of Alabama,” said Huntsville Police Chief Kirk Giles. “We extend our sincere sympathies to the officer’s family as they grieve their lost loved one.” “As we mourn with our dead officer’s family, another officer is battling for his life,” the chief stated. “Please remember to pray for all of our officers and the whole department.”
Officer Garrett Crumby, according to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, was killed. Officer Albert Morin has been recognized as the injured cop. “Today, our State mourns the loss of yet another member of our law enforcement community—one who, when called upon, went toward danger in help of a female victim,” Marshall added. “Huntsville Police Officer Garrett Crumby and partner Officer Albert Morin were responding to a domestic violence emergency call when they were attacked by an armed suspect.” Juan Robert Laws, 24, was arrested just before 11 p.m. and put into the Madison County Prison on a charge of capital murder of a law enforcement officer. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, which is conducting the investigation into the fatal shooting, acquired this charge.
Laws is still being held without bond. According to Alabama court records, he pled guilty this week to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a firearm without a license from 2022. According to the sentencing order, the firearm was to be surrendered as part of the deal with the state. Laws was also charged with two charges of second-degree assault on two persons in 2022. When he waived his preliminary hearing, the charges were sent to a grand jury for indictment consideration last month. Crumby began working for the Huntsville Police Department in 2020. From 2013 until he moved for Huntsville, he worked for the Tuscaloosa Police Department. Crumby was recently recognized as one of many policemen that assisted a guy in getting home from the grocery shop on a wet night. Crumby offered him a ride.
“It was pitch black. He was going to be walking down a busy road late at night in bad weather. “It simply made more sense to me to just offer him a ride,” Crumby explained to WHNT News 19. Crumby is the first cop in Alabama to die in the line of duty this year, but just the third to be shot. “Our area of the country was reminded this week of the pure heroism of those who make up the thin blue line – the dividing line, at times, between life and death for the folks they swear an oath to protect,” Marshall said. “These two law enforcement officers went to a domestic violence incident this evening, fully aware that they would be putting their lives in danger in order to protect their fellow man.” We must never underestimate their devotion and sacrifice.”
Billy Fred Clardy III was the latest Huntsville police officer to be murdered in the course of duty. He passed away on December 6, 2019. Clardy and several other cops were conducting a narcotics operation at a residence on Levert Street in northeast Huntsville that night. Deputy Chief Michael Johnson said Huntsville police received a report of shots fired at an apartment complex on the 4600 block of Governors Mansion Drive at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday. The caller said that she had been shot. When police got on the scene, they discovered her and took her to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to Johnson.
“During the first part of the call, the police were also shot by an offender,” Johnson previously stated. “This is a difficult night for the City of Huntsville and our law enforcement family,” Mayor Tommy Battle stated. “We are devastated. Our grief cannot be expressed in words. We have been astounded by the outpouring of compassion and support from our community, and we stand in solidarity with our officers and their families at this awful time.” Dr. Tyler Berryhill of Madison County Coroner’s Office will take Crumby’s remains to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Huntsville on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, an autopsy will be done.
A video uploaded over 30,000 times on social media appears to show paramedics doing life-saving procedures on one of the cops and delivering medical help to the second wounded officer outside an apartment complex. The video, which has since been removed from Facebook, shows cops swarming the premises with long arms drawn. The disturbing footage is not being published by AL.com. In the video, residents of the complex can be heard telling cops that a mother and her children were still inside the unit.
The footage shows officers running up to the residence with their rifles drawn at the second-story window. Police can be seen going away with one of the children covered in a blanket, while a lady leans down from the window and places a second youngster in the hands of an officer. Many individuals are also seen fleeing the building in the footage. The Madison County Sheriff’s Office and the Madison Police Department were thanked in a press release for “help handling calls in the City of Huntsville as HPD officers grieve this awful loss.”