GRENADA — Three wounded Mississippi state troopers described dead state narcotics agent Lee Tartt as a hero in videos broadcast at Tartt’s funeral Tuesday.
More than a thousand people, including Gov. Phil Bryant and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, attended the services held at Grenada’s Emmanuel Baptist Church. Tartt’s hearse was escorted by a motorcade of police officers from multiple states.
Tartt, 44, died from gunshot wounds suffered in a police raid Saturday morning near Iuka after a standoff with Charles Lee Lambert. Lambert also died in the standoff.
Wounded were Troopers Trea Staples, DeAndre Dixon and Bubba Holifield. All three filmed videos saluting Tartt from their hospital beds.
In the hourlong service, Friendship Baptist Church’s the Rev. Brian Robertson remembered Tartt as a man who would visit him while Robertson was supposed to be working and distract him with long conversations. Robertson cited Tartt as an example of the passage from the Gospel of John that states “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
After serving as a Grenada police officer, Tartt joined the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics in 2000. He was named agent of the year in 2011
Tartt’s graveside ceremony was performed inside the church after the funeral because of rain. Following two brief prayers, widow Deborah Harbin Tartt received a Mississippi state flag.
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