225BatonRouge.com

Aug. 10 marks the two-year anniversary of the death of 31-year-old Baton Rouge Police officer Terry Melancon, who was shot and killed during a narcotics raid in Capital Heights. Although Melancon was only with the department for four years, he touched the lives of hundreds, even people he apprehended.

A fact his mother, Vicki Melancon, was overwhelmed by after his death, prompting her to write and self-publish a book in her son’s memory, End of Watch: The Terry Melancon Jr. Story.

“I’ve had so many people come up to me and share their stories about Terry, about how he helped them,” she says. “He treated everybody with respect, even criminals, who most people were ready to condemn. He’s not here to finish it, but I am.”

The book offers a mother’s-eye view, opening with the terrible day Terry Melancon was shot and killed by a drug suspect as his team tried to serve a drug warrant. “ … Chief (Jeff) LeDuff bent down in front of me and took my hands in his,” she writes. “ ‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. He’s gone.’ ”

Melancon goes on to describe her son’s childhood in the Southdowns neighborhood, and about his lifelong pursuit of becoming a policeman. She also describes his larger devotion to serving and helping other people, and explains why a church in Mozambique bears his name.

End of Watch can be purchased at authorhouse.com. All proceeds go to the Terry Melancon Chapel in Mozambique, a branch of Healing Place Church.