HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — The widow of a Locust Grove police officer shot and killed in the line of duty said her husband should be remembered as a hero.
"My husband was in every essence of the word, 'hero.' I knew he was. I knew he was a man of honor, strength, integrity, everything that should make up an officer," said Alex Maddox, the widow of slain police officer Chase Maddox.
Maddox, 26, was killed when he responded as backup to two Henry County Sheriff’s Office deputies who were serving a failure-to-appear warrant in February.
Alex Maddox watched recently released body camera footage of the incident. She held her emotions as she spoke to Channel 2's Mark Winne.
"To watch that be displayed, and to know that without him more people would be dead ... it made me proud. It made me very proud to be his wife. It made me very proud to even know Chase Maddox," she said.
We spoke to Alex Maddox in September, when she offered her support for the wife of Covington Officer Matt Cooper, who was shot while responding to a shoplifting call.
Now, a fourth officer has been shot in Henry County in one year. Michael Smith was shot in the face at a dentist office last week.
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"It's jarring, it's numbing. It stops you in your tracks," Maddox said. "Just to know what somebody else was going through at that exact moment, waiting to hearing if it was their husband, their son, their brother, their dad. Time stands still and it moves rapidly at the same time."
This Christmas will be Alex Maddox's first with her 10-month-old son, who was born shortly after Chase Maddox's death.
"When I kissed my husband goodbye that morning, I did not even fathom that it would be the last time that I would see him. I didn't know it would be the last time he tucked our oldest child into bed," she said.
Alex Maddox's credits her family and community for her strength. She and others created Chase It Up, a foundation to support police with a goal of sending at least one officer a year through the police academy.
You can learn more here.