Dalton Fallen Officer Remembered

by Alyssa Spirato Photo Courtesy of: Justin Webb When you're stopping suspected drug dealers, there's always the fear your next stop could be your last. For Captain Robbie Bishop, that day came on January 20th, 1999. But his legacy will always live on.Bishop was a man every officer admired, and every drug trafficker feared.He put up a lot of fear in drug cartels and drug traffickers, that when they went past that area in Villa Rica, when you see him sitting there, it scared you. That's what we do as far as interdiction. We want to scare the drug dealers, drug traffickers and all of that built off his foundation. He started it, says Lieutenant Scott Reneau with the Tunnel Hill City Police Department.Bishop was Lieutenant Reneau's hero in life, and still is in death. In January of 99', Bishop was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Carrolton County, Georgia. Reneau pays his respects every anniversary at Bishop's tombstone. When you die in such a way he did, what people do they look at us, and see us as far as the uniform and the badge. But you forget we're sons and daughters, we're brothers and sisters, and we're fathers and we're moms. Beyond the badge part, Robbie had a family. His family is from this area, says Reneau.The Dalton native served for twelve years and taped a number of training videos for new officers. Over his career, he recovered thousands of pounds of drugs and millions of dollars in drug money.Many say he treated the drug cartels as a scientific study, and turned it into an artform.What he looked as was the way people drove, the trends that were going on, he studied it. He made it an artform out of that aspect. For what he began as far as teaching at that time, has grown to like 5 thousand members of the NCEA that we train nationally, says Reneau.Reneau credits Bishop for paving the path for drug interdiction. Bishop's teachings made him the officer he is today.He died in 1999. But the things he was teaching in 1999, we're still using today. So it just shows he was way ahead of his time in the interdiction world, says Reneau.And one phrase in particular stands out, something Bishop preached every day of his life in hopes of saving others. No load is worth your life.A few days after Bishop's death, a man from New York was arrested for his murder. Lt. Reneau says Bishop was loved so much, his procession from Villa Rica to Dalton was over 30 miles long.