Freddie Jackson remembers all the fond memories shared with his nephew, 33-year-old Montrell Jackson.
“Very fun loving young man and very dedicated to everything he did,” said Freddie.
Montrell was one of three Baton Rouge police officers who were gunned down in a standoff with a gunman on Sunday morning.
His uncle described Montrell as a devoted husband and a proud new dad to a son, only 4 months old.
In a now viral Facebook post just ten days ago, Montrell posted a message of his hometown after an ambush where a gunman killed five police officers in Dallas, Texas.
He said, “I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform I am considered a threat. I’ve experienced so much in my short life an the last three days have tested me to the core.”
His uncle says, the 6-foot-4 man, known as “Smurf” by family, took his duty as an officer seriously and felt called to protect and serve his community.
“I think it’s not like being a Midwesterner or someone out east. Being black in a southern town, the confederate flags and the things that still exist down there, it creates a certain amount of separation and that’s sort of what triggers everything," Freddie said. “As a public servant you are trying to put yourself in a position to make that better and that’s what he was trying to do. And that’s what he believed in doing and that’s why he wanted to be a public servant.”
Freddie, a former running backs football coach at The University of Michigan and now head football coach at Ypsilanti High School, says his family here and in Baton Rouge is suffering an immeasurable loss, and there is something he wants to world to know about police officers.
“They are there to help you,” said Freddie. "They are not there when something bad breaks down to run away from it. When they see something bad toward someone in the community they run to it to help. That’s most of them. That’s the high percentage. Now you do have good and bad of all situations. Most of those people are there to give their lives to help you.”
