An officer with a zest for service and no plans of retiring anytime soon, is inspiring people all over the country.
L.C. “Buckshot” Smith is the oldest police officer in the state at 91 years old and drives around in an unmarked police car in Camden, Arkansas.
Although his walk is a little slower now, but he still walks the beat of his hometown four days a week. “This badge and gun don’t make you a police officer. You got to respect people,” Smith said.
L.C. has worked more than four decades for the Ouachita County Sheriff’s Department, and went by his childhood nickname “Buckshot.” He worked 46 years as a deputy, and retired for only five months.
During those five months, he says he did not have any fun as he says, “I don’t hunt. I don’t fish.”
In his eighties, he became a rookie Camden cop. He carries a firearm, but he doesn’t have to use it. Mayor Julian Lott said Smith has a more powerful weapon. “He knows your mama and he knew your grandmother. So he has the authority to speak into our lives,” Lott said.
Smith said over his career, he has “taken more people home than I’ve taken to them to jail.
“He does not want to retire. In his words, to me, he’ll retire when the good Lord tells him to,” said chief Boyd Woody. Smith plans to keep rolling and patrolling till the end.
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