Friends and family gathered at Greater St. Mary’s Baptist Church on Saturday to remember Ira Brown, Jr., one of Tyler’s first African-American police officers.
Retired Tyler officer Herb Hayter said that “he always had something positive to say about his job.”
When Brown joined the police, African-Americans were not allowed to patrol the southern part of the city.
Battling adversity and discrimination, Brown served the people of Tyler as a police officer for 31 years.
Current and retired police officers were at the ceremony Saturday to pay their respects