Hundreds attend park dedication for Officer Molly Bowden
Randy Boehm said he was lucky he had only one day like January 10, 2005.
“Hard to believe it was 11 years ago. Feels sometimes much, much more raw and recent than that,” the former Columbia police chief said Wednesday, standing near the spot one of his officers was shot.
Molly Bowden, then 26 years old, pulled over Richard Evans near the intersection of Nifong and Forum Boulevards. An officer with the Columbia Police Department for three years, Bowden was returning Evans’ license just after 9 p.m., and planned to let him off with a traffic warning. Evans shot Bowden three times, striking her in the neck, just above her bulletproof vest.
“I could actually see the red lights from the responding vehicles from my bedroom window as I got ready to respond,” Boehm said of that night.
Evans killed himself as police closed in on him the next morning, shooting Officer Curtis Brown in the arm as he chased him. Bowden’s time in the hospital after the shooting turned worse over time, and she died on February 10.
“We all think that those 30 days were her giving us time to come to grips with what was going to happen,” Boehm said, pausing with emotion. “Difficult time.”
Boehm, along with hundreds of family and friends, gathered at the new Molly Bowden Memorial Park Wednesday evening, officially dedicating the space on Boone Hospital’s south campus at the same intersection. Boehm told ABC 17 News he and others were concerned when the hospital announced plans to build in that area, because the expansion would remove the existing memorial sign placed there. Boehm said he was pleased, though, seeing how seriously the hospital took creating a space for Bowden.
Bowden served as a patrol officer during her three years of service. The former police chief said Bowden had a knack for connecting with people she dealt with on the job – an often overlooked skill for police officers.
“She could put people at ease, she could visit with people, um, they related to her. And so that’s the kind of skill set that she brought to the Columbia Police Department on a daily basis.”
Columbia Parks and Recreation will take over maintenance of the park.
