Sullivan County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Steve Hinkle’s sister recalls emotional scene as veteran fought to live

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Blue Lives Lost: Remembering Steve Hinkle (1954 - 2019)

Sergeant Steve Hinkle died on February 26, 2019, three days after being shot while conducting a welfare check. Sergeant Hinkle had served with the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee for 27 years.

One by one, the SWAT team members -- with tears in their eyes and mud-stained uniforms – filed through the hospital’s recovery room to pay their respects.

Hours earlier, they were with Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Steve Hinkle when he was shot during a standoff in which a suspect had barricaded himself inside a home. What started as a welfare check on Feb. 23 in Blountville, Tenn., had morphed into a firefight, and Hinkle, a 27-year veteran of the department, would succumb to his injuries days later.

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“To see that many grown men sitting there crying -- that was their brother,” Kathi Boyd, Hinkle’s sister, told Fox News. “They are hurting every bit as much as we are."

And that emotional scene was just one of many Boyd experienced in February.

Sgt. Steve Hinkle worked with the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office for 27 years, and prior to that, spent five years as a reserve deputy sheriff. (Sullivan County Sheriff's Office)

OFFICERS KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY IN 2019 

The last time Boyd said she saw her brother before the emotional scene at the hospital was at the burial of their aunt – the day before Hinkle was shot.

When it came time for Hinkle’s funeral, she says she remembers riding with the sheriff to the cemetery and seeing the “unbelievable” turnout of people who had gathered to honor a beloved officer.

The sheriff said “Look behind us,” Boyd recalled, “and I looked behind us and as far as you can see -- it was probably five miles -- there was nothing but cars and blue lights.”

Growing up, Hinkle was the oldest of eight children in his family. His father served in the U.S. Army and his mom, Boyd said, “just liked having babies.”

Steve Hinkle as a child with his sister Kathi Boyd. Steve, she says, was the oldest of eight children in their family. (Courtesy Kathy Boyd)

From a young age, Hinkle took an interest in the old American West, its weaponry and legendary gun battles. It was an interest that would remain with him throughout his life and, during his career with the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office, he channeled that passion into becoming an expert marksman and firearms instructor.

“He could tell you a lot about any gun you ever talked to him about, particularly those cowboy guns, the older revolvers,” Capt. Andy Seabolt told Fox News. “He took the time with the officers to make sure they knew – especially the new ones… how to shoot, the way the gun works, things like that.”

Seabolt says Hinkle “always came to work with a smile on his face” and often participated in his department’s community outreach programs, such as annual toy drives for needy children. He served at one point as a school resource officer and also was involved in the sheriff office’s law enforcement explorer program, which gives teenagers a chance to see what a police career is like.

“Sometimes you just have something in your heart you are supposed to be doing – and being a police officer was what he was supposed to be doing,” Boyd said.

Steve Hinkle, at a young age, became fascinated in the old American West. His family moved to Arizona when he was a kid, and there -- his sister says -- he watched re-enactments. (Courtesy Kathi Boyd)

Outside of work, those who knew him say, Hinkle was into fishing and helping out with his church.

On the day of the shooting, Boyd said, she and her husband were heading to a store when she got backed up in traffic. That delay, unknown to her at the time, was caused by the response to the scene where Hinkle had been targeted.

She then got a call from her sister who told her she heard an officer had been shot.

“It didn’t cross my mind,” that it was Hinkle, Boyd said. “I guess I just didn’t want it to cross my mind."

Steve Hinkle is pictured here during a hunting trip with one of his sons and a nephew. (Courtesy Kathi Boyd)

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Boyd said whenever she watches news programs on television and sees stories about police officer deaths, she would “stop and say a prayer” for the families affected.

“This one, there is my brother,” she told Fox News. “I hope they are praying for us – we need it.”