Remembering Curtis Hodge: Department supervisor reflects on officer’s legacy

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — The Warner Robins Police Department is mourning one of its own this week. Booking and Transport Officer Curtis Hodge passed away Tuesday of natural causes, according to a Facebook post from the department.

“BTO Hodge was loved and respected by many in the department and outside the department. Please keep the family and friends of BTO Hodge in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days. We lost a great man last night and our department is heartbroken,” the post said.

Hodge worked in several other jails before his time at the police department. With a vast amount of experience, he took on a mentor role and became a champion for more pay and benefits for booking and transport.

According to Hodge’s supervisor, Lt. James Bish, Hodge showed compassion towards inmates, encouraging officers to do the same. Officers under his mentorship were made stronger and more diplomatic after field training as a result.

“Hodge would take the time to teach them how to deal with people, show them grace and compassion to people who get arrested. Because honestly, with our job, it’s really easy to get almost an ‘us versus them’ mentality. He always took time to explain to the new guys: just because somebody is getting arrested doesn’t make them a bad person. Everybody makes mistakes,” Bish said.

A people person, Hodge also took the time to get to know his peers.

“Many mornings and overnights, when we were on night shift, [we were] standing out in the parking lot, talking about our kids, families, things that are going on at the police department. The way Hodge was, everybody talked to him. He just knew everything, generally before anybody else knew it, he knew it,” Bish said.

Hodge made an effort to start the day on the right foot. Described as “full of jokes,” Hodge started the shift in a joking mood, and had a running joke with his supervisor.

“One of our running jokes is comp time. Generally speaking, the police department doesn’t do comp time; we either get paid the overtime, or whatever. So it’s not really something that we do very often, but he would always be like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna use my comp time.’ And I’m like, ‘You don’t have any comp time.’ And he’d say, ‘I have it, I’m counting,’” Bish said, laughing. “It’s just kind of a running joke about how much comp time he has, and then he would call me at one o’clock and be like, ‘Hey, I’m tired. I’m just gonna go home, Okay?’”

Expanding his social circle to the entire police department, Bish said the booking and transport team, and the police department, is better as a result.

“We would spend time on nights — when there’s not a whole lot going on, out in the parking lot — just talking about how things are going and what we’re trying to get done and where he would like to see some changes,” Bish said. “And if he saw something in the process, like the booking process, that can be done better, he would bring it up. We got several things changed in our process that makes things better and they were things that he saw where he’s like, ‘Hey, why don’t we do it this way instead?’”

With almost 10 years in service to the department, Hodge’s absence has changed the dynamic and he will be greatly missed by family, friends and the police department.

“Everybody’s just kind of off,” Bish said. “We keep doing the work. And then every now and then in between that, you get some stuff that you got to deal with. It’s tough. The only thing that’s gonna fix that is time.”

In this difficult time, our hearts and prayers go out to Officer Hodge’s family, loved ones and the police department.

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