Patrolman Jimmy Earl Kennedy - Juneau Police Dept. - True Life Hero

Jimmy Earl Kennedy
- Apr. 17, 1979 -

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Juneau Police Dept. Patch

Resided:	Juneau AK, USA
Born:	Dec. 13, 1946
Fallen:	Apr. 17, 1979
Race/Sex:	Caucasian Male / 32 yrs. of age
	Agency
Dept:	Juneau Police Dept. Juneau, AK USA
Dept. Type:	Municipal/Police
Hero's Rank:	Patrolman
Sworn Date:	11/1977
FBI Class:	Homicide - Gun
Weapon Class:	Firearm

Bio: Jimmy Earl Kennedy, 32, was born on Dec. 13, 1946, in Magee, MI, to J.C. and Ruby Valentine Kennedy. He was the third of three children (James Martin, Lee and Jimmy Earl). Jimmy grew up in Simpson County, MS, attending the public schools in Magee, MS. He graduated from White Oak H.S. in nearby Raleigh, MS, in 1964. After graduation from H.S. he joined the U.S. Navy and served for four years (part of the time in VietNam) before his discharge in August of 1969. After his discharge from the Navy, Jimmy started a "traveling country western band ("Swamp Grass") and played engagements across the U.S. for 8 years from 1969-1977. During an engagement in Ft. Pierre, SD, in Sept. of 1979, Jimmy Earl Kennedy, 22, met Patricia J. Carr, 22, and the couple was married on Oct. 12, 1969, in Onida, SD. The couple had two daughters, Melody (born in 1972) and Rachael (1973). During an engagement in Juneau, AK, in Sept. of 1976, Jimmy Earl and Patricia "fell in love with the mountains and the natural beauty" of AK and decided they wanted to find a way to move their family to AK. In the fall of 1977 Jimmy Earl's band played another engagement in Juneau (at the Prospector Hotel) and during that six weeks engagement he began testing and applying for positions in law enforcement in AK. Three days before his engagement was over (in Nov. of 1977) he was accepted by the Juneau Police Dept. and moved his family to Juneau. He was an 18-month veteran of the Dept. at the time of his death.

Survived by:

Patricia Kennedy - Wife

two daughters, Melody, 7, and Rachael, 6; his parents, J.C. Kennedy, 67, and Ruby Valentine Kennedy, 62, of Magee, MS; a brother, James Martin Kennedy, 46, of Magee, MS; and a sister, Mrs. Fred (Lee Kennedy) Levins, 43, of Jackson, MS.

Fatal Incident Summary

Offender:	Louis Sorensen

Location:	AK USA Tue. Apr. 17, 1979
Summary:	Juneau Police Officers Richard J. Adair, 51, and Jimmy E. Kennedy, 32, were shot and killed on April 17, 1979, by a "barricaded lunatic" as they approached his house in their patrol car. The assailant committed suicide shortly after killing the two officers. Adair and Kennedy became the second and third officers killed in the history of the Juneau Police Dept. (Officer Donald Dull was the first in 1963). Just after 1:00PM on Tuesday, April 17, 1979, Officers Adair and Kennedy responded to several calls from citizens near 1724 Evergreen Ave. In the "Juneau Highlands" that several shots had been fired nearby. A more specific call came from Dr. Henry J. Akiyama, a Juneau cardiologist, who reported that a man whom he identified as his neighbor, Louis Sorensen of 1724 Evergreen Ave., had fired three shots at him with a rifle as he backed his car out of his driveway at 1705 Evergreen. Dr. Akiyama reported that Sorensen had been walking down the street and that he had a "tense look" on his face that concerned him. When he looked back again Sorensen had raised the rifle to his shoulder and was pointing it at him. The doctor "dove to the seat" of his car just as the first shot "whizzed past his left ear, through the windshield and down Evergreen Ave." Akiyama tried to flee the gunman by trying to drive his car (while lying on the seat) down the street. He was then struck by a second bullet which passed through a door and the front seat and "stopped in his lower back just to the side of his wallet, leaving a painfully bright red welt but not breaking the skin." At the time he thought he had been wounded more seriously and continued to try to drive the car ("blindly" from lying on the front seat). A third bullet passed "through the front seat, nicking the small of his back," coming to rest "between his back and his suit coat." The frightened doctor was able to "speed around the corner" and escape the gunman and rushed the � mile to his office and called police. Akiyama had lived across the street from Sorensen "for over a dozen years" and only infrequently talked with the man he described as a "loner." Since he had no past trouble with Sorensen, Akiyama believed that he was not a special target but that Sorensen had just gone "berserk" and would have "shot at anyone who had come into his view." Officers Kennedy and Adair were the first officers to respond to the scene. Adair was on his lunch break when the call came to police headquarters about the shooting incident, "and though he was normally a traffic officer, he responded to the call to lend help as 'back-up'." As they drove up to Sorensen's home at the end of Evergreen Ave., they were met with a "volley of shots." The police car was hit at least three times. The car "had a cloud of steam coming up from the radiator" and then "started rolling back down the hill and ran into the curb. Other arriving police quickly learned that both Kennedy and Adair had been fatally wounded by the volley of shots from 1724 Evergreen. Sorensen had opened fire on the police car from a "barricaded" position inside his home. He fired 20 shots from two rifles (a 30-06 and a 30-30) at the car occupied by Kennedy and Adair and at later arriving police cars. A third officer, Mike Stickler, was shot in the leg. Police could not determine from which windows the gunfire had come and did not return the fire but surrounded the house and noted that Sorensen was firing from a barricaded position in the house. They attempted to fire tear gas shells into the home but the windows were boarded in such a manner that the effort was unsuccessful. After the gunfire from inside the house subsided, officers rushed the house and forced entry. They found Sorensen dead on a bed inside a bedroom with a gunshot to the head. He had apparently committed suicide with a .44 pistol.
Disposition:	They found Sorensen dead on a bed inside a bedroom with a gunshot to the head. He had apparently committed suicide with a .44 pistol.
Source:	Book Excerpted in part or in whole from Dr. Wilbanks book- FORGOTTEN HEROES: POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN ALASKA, 1867-1998 By Dr. Wm. Wilbanks FL International University To be published by Turner Publications in early 1999
Related:	Richard James Adair

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Last Updated: May. 29, 2019