Joshua Campbell (jccno4@gmail.com)

Monday, April 16, 2007

The letters amassed in Jason Campbell's file at the Pitt County Sheriff's Office tell the story of a man devoted to law enforcement.

Carefully written by residents throughout his five-year career there before he left for the Greenville police force, the letters commended Campbell for stopping to help change a tire, aid in drug searches at an area jail or for simply being professional.

Looking back over them Sunday, Sheriff Mac Manning found similar praises for the fallen officer.

"I can tell you this community has lost a fine officer," Manning said as he perused Campbell's thick employee file. "He was cool, calm and collected. I don't ever recall him being rattled. It was the kind of demeanor that served him very well as an officer."

Those remarks were echoed at the Greenville Police Department, where the 35-year-old had worked for the past nearly five years. He was killed in the line of duty Saturday when his northbound squad car was involved in a crash with a Jeep pickup truck traveling south on Greene Street.

The two vehicles met about 1:05 p.m. in front of the Wilco-Hess gas station four-tenths of a mile from the First Street intersection.

Campbell, his passenger, fellow Officer Nathan LeCompte, and the pickup driver, 51-year-old Billy Ray Greene, were all transported to Pitt County Memorial Hospital.

Greene remained in critical condition at the hospital on Sunday night. LeCompte has since been released.

Officials with the State Highway Patrol continue to investigate the wreck, which troopers began reconstructing Saturday.

The investigation blocked passage on the street for about 7 1/2 hours Saturday to allow troopers to snap photographs, take measurements and use tires to test the drag factor of the pavement surface, said Highway Patrol Sgt. Gary Weaver.

The efforts were just the beginning of a tedious reconstruction process, Weaver said. More measurements and further analysis of damage sustained by the vehicles is still to come.

Weaver hoped the information would offer more insight into how the wreck occurred and the speed at impact.

Campbell was a member of the police department's Increased Mobilization of Police and Community Together —IMPACT — Team. The team specializes in addressing residents' concerns by working with neighborhoods where problems have been identified.

Most recently, he had worked in the Tar River neighborhood, IMPACT Team member Mark Dentel said.

He and several other Greenville officers spent Sunday together, remembering Campbell and visiting with his family.

Dentel, who had come to call Campbell a friend, fought back tears as he spoke about the nearly five-year department veteran as a thorough officer.

"He was very attentive to detail," Dentel recalled. "He paid a lot of attention to citizens' concerns ... took them to heart."

Campbell started his law enforcement career in 1996 as a deputy at the Pitt County Sheriff's Office, where he began as a reserve deputy.

During his time there, he worked as a court officer, patrol deputy, a deputy with the identification unit and a K9 handler. He had also been a member of the dive team and Special Response Team before leaving Aug. 13, 2002.

"He was one of those guys that went after it .... That was the kind of officer he was," Manning said. "He went above the call of duty, so to speak."

Outside of work, Campbell was an avid fisherman and hunter who loved to play hockey.

Dentel remembered first meeting Campbell when he signed on with the police department to work as a patrol officer in August 2002.

"We both hit it off right away," Dentel said, noting a shared love for hockey that had them making the round-trip to an ice rink in Raleigh to play on several occasions.

"You can't say enough about him — he was a great man," Dentel said.

Campbell had attended Unity Free Will Baptist Church.

Unity Pastor Jeff Manning said Campbell was remembered at the Sunday morning service. The church was told of Campbell's death and asked to pray that Manning would have the appropriate words for the Wednesday afternoon funeral, he said.

Campbell is the first Greenville officer to be killed in the line of duty since 1952, when an officer was shot when he surprised robbers at a Dickinson Avenue dry cleaners.