Published: November 24, 2008 02:05 pm            

A ‘genuinely nice person’ | Keep slain FBI agent’s family in your prayers

When a law enforcement officer falls in the line of duty, the heartache is felt well beyond the law community itself. We all mourn.

But for our region, it was even more disturbing with the untimely and senseless death last week of FBI Special Agent Sam Hicks.

He was shot and killed in suburban Pittsburgh while participating in a drug raid that netted three dozen arrests.

How tragic.

Agent Hicks was a 1999 graduate of Pitt-Johnstown. His mother is a substitute teacher in the Rockwood Area School District in southern Somerset County. He also leaves behind his wife, Brooke, a Baltimore native, and the couple’s 2-year-old son, Noah.

His funeral was set for this morning.

It takes an especially brave and dedicated person to sign on for a dangerous job in law enforcement. But how often do we pause to think how valuable their work is to our daily peace of mind? Seldom, too, do we ever take the time to thank these men and women, our soldiers on our streets at home.

Mr. Hicks is being remembered on the UPJ campus as a “genuinely nice person” and as someone who showed tremendous potential for a promising career.

His co-workers described him as a family man and someone who was on the fast-track to success on the job.

A former Baltimore police officer and schoolteacher, he had been with the FBI only since March 2007. Mr. Hicks would have been 34 years old on Thanksgiving Day.

Much too young to die.

As your family gathers around the table on Thursday to give thanks and to offer blessings, please remember this young man who gave his life trying to make ours just a little better and a little safer.

        

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