Published: November 09, 2006 08:24 pm      

Funeral escorts a dying tradition in some Tennessee towns

MURFREESBORO — The small-town custom of police escorts for funeral processions is something some Tennessee cities may have outgrown.

Jennings & Ayers Funeral Home typically relies on the Murfreesboro Police Department to provide escorts to lead the procession, but increasingly they've had to go alone on life's final journey.

Secretary Peggy Barrett said that often funeral directors have to turn on the strobe light inside the hearse because there aren't officers available to assist.

"People here do genuinely still care, and it's part of the pride in being a small town," Murfreesboro police spokesman Lt. Alvin Baird said. "But there's a point where you have to say, we're not the same city we were 10 to 15 years ago."

Murfreesboro has evolved into a mid-sized suburb of Nashville and police have less time for non-emergency calls like police escorts.

"We don't like telling people, 'We don't have enough staff to escort your family to the gravesite,'" Baird said. "The city has grown to the point where you've got to look at safety and the liability factor."

In Giles County, officers still make the time to sit at intersections to stop traffic and flash their lights at the front and rear of a procession.

"The people that live around here expect it, but I think it's also a service that the (police and sheriff's departments) give," said David Potts of the Carr and Erwin Funeral Home in Pulaski, a town of about 7,900 residents 70 miles southwest of Nashville.

Police in the Nashville suburb of Gallatin have found a way to avoid time constraints on available officers by using two public safety officers who aren't sworn police officers.

Those officers will usually handle an assignment to lead a funeral when they're free, Lt. Kate Novitsky said.

Some funeral homes are adjusting to the changes by hiring private security companies to provide the service that families see as a sign of respect for the dead.

"Having an escort keeps the cars together, you don't have to stop at the red lights, they stop the traffic each way," Barrett said.

Nashville police don't routinely escort funeral processions, but Capt. Paul Trickey said they will provide escorts on a case-by-case basis.

George Dobbs of the Phillips-Robinson Co. Directors has hired private escorts to lead processions for the last 17 years he's been a funeral director in Nashville.

Dobbs said the private escorts work just as well as an official police escort, but that's because other drivers are courteous to the funeral processions.

"It's surprising as big as Nashville is and as populous as it has become, it's still amazing how many people will pull over for a procession," Dobbs said.