ATLANTA — The family of a local police officer killed on the job is remembering him nearly 40 years after his murder.
Atlanta Police Officer and Vietnam veteran Alfred Johnson Jr. was working a side job as a security guard at a grocery store in East Atlanta in February 1980.
Investigators say two robbers held up the store.
Johnson was trying to protect customers when the robbers shot him.
He died minutes after arriving at the hospital.
“I never thought anything would happen to him,” said Johnson’s sister, Jane Comer.
Over the years, the case went cold.
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Police reopened it in 2010 and made some progress, but it stalled again.
It is the Atlanta Police Department’s only unsolved officer killing.
Comer told Channel 2 Action News that she and her family appreciate detectives' tireless work to try to solve the case, but she's accepted that it may never be solved.
“I don’t think it’s anybody alive. If you live a life of crime, I don’t think you’re alive this long living a life of crime,” Comer said.
Throughout the nearly four decades since Johnson’s murder, the loss has taken a hard toll on the family.
“We try and bring out every joyful thing that we can, you know, because you can grieve yourself until it just makes you sick. That’s what happened to my dad. He grieved himself to death,” Comer said.
Comer told Channel 2 Action News that she's not angry at the killers anymore.
Instead, she’s focused on staying strong for the family and remembering the good times she shared with her beloved brother.
“I just thank God that he is, I want to believe, at peace,” Comer said.
If you have any information about Johnson’s murder, you’re urged to call Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477.
Cox Media Group
