Gee Whiz, We're Awfully Proud of Him

A Hero's History
By Kristen Moulton The Salt Lake Tribune

Hammond was destined to be a cop. This Ogden officer's mom remembers when, as a teen, he chased restaurant patrons who stole a carafe.

OGDEN - A screenwriter would have a tough time coming up with a character more inclined to act like a hero.

Ken Hammond, the off-duty Ogden police officer who kept the Trolley Square shooter engaged in a gunbattle Feb. 12, not only was in the right place at the right time - limiting the victim casualty count to five dead and four wounded - but he also had the right stuff:

Confidence. A sharp sense of right and wrong. A passion for excitement.

"It's just him," said his mother, Diana Hammond, of Lake Havasu, Ariz. "He's done the same [kind of] thing for as long as I can remember."

Hammond said he would not have been able to live with himself if, instead of taking on the shooter, he had retreated to Rodizio Grill, where he and his pregnant wife had just finished dessert.

The 33-year-old cop put it this way to a group of Ogden fourth-graders: "Police officers, we kind of have a weird mind." Read more here ...

Jennifer Bunker, CRS, GRI
Utah Real Estate Broker