We sat down with Crisp County Sheriff, Billy Hancock to speak with him regarding the tragic loss of Crisp County Deputy Tyee Browne (Crisp-17) whose life was taken far too soon. At only the age of 26-years-old Tyee Browne, was a reserve Army National Guard, and started his career with Crisp County Sheriffs Department in early 2022 in the Detention center and not long after he became a deputy. His time was cut short by evil, on Wednesday July 5^th, around 3:40 A.M., Crisp County Sheriff’s Deputy Tyee Browne got out with a vehicle in the middle of the roadway in the 1300 Block of HWY 280 West, Cordele, Georgia. The vehicle in question came back stolen. After getting out with the vehicle, Tyee Browne was shot and critically injured. The suspect took the Deputy’s patrol car and fled the scene. Crisp County EMS transported the Deputy to Crisp Regional Hospital. The subject led law enforcement on a pursuit through multiple Georgia counties. Monroe County Sheriff’s Office arrested the subject on I475. They also recovered the stolen patrol unit. The GBI is currently conducting an independent investigation. Sheriff gave us the break down of what he heard and experienced during the this time, “This isn’t going away today or yesterday this is going to be with us forever, because those guys that worked that shift within 2 minutes one of them was there. And that same guy was trying to shoot that second officer but his weapon failed on him. That officer got out and realized immediately what was going on, and the bad guy steals the patrol car. He shoots towards the patrol car and runs over to where Tyee is at and then you hear want you never want to hear, officer down, officer down, I’m doing CPR. Now you gotta worry about him, and the next officer that arrived on scene and did CPR until the ambulance got there. You know and I can’t say enough about our medical team in Crisp County. Crisp County EMS you know it was almost evident what was going on the side of the road and what the outcome was going to be.” Hancock continues to describe what the scene was like once they reached Crisp Regional Hospital. He says, “ I watched people cry while working on him, I watched people physically get sick while working on him. But they never stopped they gave that man every chance he would have had.”

Billy speaks about what he saw on the video during this tragic incident, he confirms that Tyee did everything he was supposed to do. “He used the PA system to get this guy out of the car, he brought him out he brought him back he had one handcuff on him, this guy was evil, this guy had every intent to do harm and get away from that scene to keep fromm going back to jail and the only thing that stood between him was the 26 year old deputy sheriff that had been doing this job for less than a year.” Hancock mentions, “Nobody said anything bad about him, I mean everything that we had and everything that we done was just positive about Tyee.” He was a very loveable person, he grew on everyone; he considered the department and everyone in it his family. When speaking with the sheriff he really clarifies what they mean by family, “These men and women are truly our family you see them more than you see your family some days. When you should be at home on Christmas or birthdays you are in a patrol car, you are with members of the sheriffs office whilst your family is celebrating.” They saw in Tyee at an early age in his dedication to being better and what could he do. He never complained never asked for a day off he was just a really good kid.

Billy explains how the department and the people of the department are handling things, “I think we are al doing what we are trained to do, we are all robots. We know we got a job to do and we know we can’t go home. 911 still operates, don’t leave out Cordele PD those guys engaged this guy within minutes after he had shot a deputy and they engaged this guy. Everyone between here and Monroe County knowing that this guy had shot somebody put their life on the line to catch him and put him in jail. That is what we are all doing we are still dong our jobs and when we are in our private moments where the public can’t see us we are our shedding tears and we are going to shed them in public we are all human.” He continues saying, “Because we are so small everyone in his agency knows this guy. They know this young man he worked in the jail he worked his way up through there he went to mandate school went through there. He has touched everybody in this agency, at some point at some time.”

Billy gives a huge thank you to the surrounding counties and everyone in the state of Georgia who has reached out and helped during such a tragic time.

Hancock stated, “I wanna take a minute to thank this community. I see here on Friday an outpour in the community.” There are several more events to happen over the weekend, this isn’t over. This morning (July 7, 2023) the Sheriff’s Office will lead the family as a unity to the funeral home. This will be the first time they will have been able to view their son. Saturday they will be putting logistics together for visitation, Sunday the public, friends, members of the sheriff’s office and the family will be at the funeral home from 3-5pm. Monday they want to give him a hero’s send off cause that is what he is. They encourage people to line the streets for the procession on Monday to show their support for Tyee and his family.

He finishes by speaking about the family and how they are doing, he says that they are doing okay, and that the Sheriff’s office is receiving help with a hotel and food for the family as they don’t live here. He speaks about what Tyee’s mom said in regards to the planning, “when I ask what to do and how to do, she said, you all are Tyee’s family, Tyee loves you all, he would love anything from you all, it is so close to what she said when we asked, you tell us what you want in a funeral we will make it happen, she said, no you tell us.”

Monday wont be the end of it, this will be life changing for the agency.

The funeral will be held at the Old Middle School Auditorium 1116 24^th Avenue, Cordele, GA on Monday July 10, 2023 at 2:00pm.

There will be updates being made over the coming days on our Website and Facebook Page.