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| 1,000 Gather to Honor CO Killed on Duty |
| By The Baltimore Sun |
| Published: 02/06/2006 |
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More than 1,000 correctional officers, state troopers, sheriff's deputies and other police from several states converged on this small town about 20 miles west of Hagerstown, Md., to honor a fallen Maryland officer. They came for the funeral of Jeffery Alan Wroten, 44, a father of five who was shot in the head last week at a Western Maryland hospital, allegedly by an inmate who had been sent there for treatment of a self-inflicted injury. Wroten, a correctional officer at a Hagerstown prison the past four years, was remembered during the services at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a family man who adored his children and as a respected member of the church. Some co-workers teasingly called him "Shrek," after the movie character, because of his large size and big heart, said Roy Young, a friend and former bishop of the church. He said everyone who came into contact with Wroten liked him. "Jeff was everyone's friend," he said. Outside the church, Capt. Mark Martin, a close friend and co-worker at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, said Wroten chose to work midnight shifts so he could spend more time with his children. Though he was recently divorced, Martin said, he would go back to his family's home in the morning to see the kids off to school and would be there to greet them when they got home. "Jeff was a family man first," said Martin. He said his friend was "one of a core group of officers you could go to in a pinch. Anytime you needed help, he was the first guy you would go to." Wroten was filling in for another officer on what would normally have been his day off when he was shot last week, Martin said. Maryland prison officials are investigating how the inmate he was guarding, Brandon Morris, 20, of Baltimore, managed to wrest Wroten's gun away from him before the shooting. Prison policies require inmates to be shackled to hospital beds, but those restraints are removed when they use the bathroom or when ordered by a doctor for medical reasons, corrections officials say. Wroten had years of experience working in prisons before coming to Maryland, officials have pointed out. Martin escorted Wroten's former wife, Tracy, into the church yesterday and sat with her and the children, ages 5 to 15, during the services. She held one of her daughters in her lap in front of the flag-draped coffin. Roderick Sowers, the Roxbury warden, said Wroten was usually the first person officers on the day shift would see when arriving for work. "He helped begin the day with a smile and a kind word," Sowers said. "He genuinely cared about people." |
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