Church fills for Heard rites 14 days after gunbattle over arrest ends in on-spot execution
Man, 34, leaves behind five children, clamor by family, NAACP for transparency
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Friday, Aug. 25, 2023 — The funeral sendoff for Roger Heard, slain two weeks ago today by police in Chattanooga, is passionate in its emotion and mild in its reproof of the harm done to Mr. Heard by the final slugs fired in his gunbattle death.
By David Tulis / NoogaRadio Network
The event is blocked to the media except for a dispensenation allowed to be given by Marie Mott, an activist whose cause has included the ravages of policing upon blacks and the downtrodden. I am one of about 20 whites in a nearly full sanctuary, the largest contingent is from the Sin City Disciples motorcycle club. Its members stand guard, as it were, one in dark sunglasses, in front of the bier at the head of the semicircle pews.
Mr. Heard’s casket is dark metal, bedecked with buds, with ribbed handlebar. The service opens with a procession of grieving family members and others passing by in clutches. Finely dressed, a woman bursts into sobs and bends over. It happens with another just behind her, children in tow, as she hovers over his face, his ballcap pointing upward like a fin.
A mortician from Taylor Funeral Home turns a metal handle and drops the body lower, and with white gloves closes the black box.
The people consider Mr. Heard “knowing that [God] walked with him every step of the way” in death, says a woman in prayer. The father of five perished in a hospital bed after a shootout with Chattanooga policeman Celtain Batterson at a brightly lit gas station plaza. She beseeches God for an end to injustice, saying Mr. Heard “touched so many lives” and has a legacy by which people will favorably remember him.
News reports, citing CPD, hold that he had illegal narcotics in his car and presumably ill-gotten Federal Reserve System banknotes. He fired a pistol at Officer Batterson, wounding him, and in seconds is sawn down by a barrage of fire. Any injury to his face is not evident in public review of his remains.
Bishop Kevin L. Adams’ focuses on the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10, to whom he likens Mr. Heard: Involved in cleanup, a man “who did a lot of good things” and “had a lot of good in him” — “None of us is perfect,” Mr. Adams says. Rev. Adams proposes that Mr. Heard’s death should prompt a change in his listeners. He proposes that everyone come and pull two pennies from a silvery cup in his hand, mere change like the two pennies the Good Samaritan puts down to pay for the care of the injured man he finds roadside.