Procession on I-40 escorts fallen police officer from Raleigh to Greensboro
Fire engines, ambulances and law enforcement lined bridges over Interstate 40 on Wednesday as a fallen police sergeant shot while trying to stop a crime was escorted back to Greensboro.
Sky 5 flew overhead at 1 p.m. as the body of Sergeant Philip Dale Nix was escorted from the Medical Examiner's Office in Raleigh back to his home in Greensboro.
At 12:30 p.m., dozens of law enforcement vehicles lined up in Raleigh on District Drive near PNC Arena. EMS workers stood outside an ambulance with flashing lights to show their support for the fallen officer.
The motorcade, which includes motorcycles and dozens of police vehicles, began in the areas of Blue Ridge Road and Wade Avenue before proceeding to I-40 West.
Just before 1:30 p.m., Sky 5 video showed firefighters standing on firetrucks on overpasses lining I-40 in Cary and Durham. Other first responders raised their arms in salute to the procession passing beneath them.
Jamere Foster, 18, charged with the veteran officer's first-degree murder, is facing a maximum sentence of the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Z’quriah Le’Pearce Blackwell, 18, was charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree murder, and John Walter Morrison, 28, was charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree murder, larceny and conspiracy to commit larceny.
Greensboro Police Chief John Thompson said another off-duty officer and a Guilford County paramedic at the gas station tried to save Nix, but he died at the hospital.
Nix was off-duty at the time of the shooting.
