Fifteen years ago today Athens was enjoying a mild and sunny early spring day that by afternoon would become one of the darker days in the community's recent history.

It was on March 22, 2011, that Athens-Clarke County Senior Police Officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian III was shot and killed in the line of duty. SPO Tony Howard was seriously wounded by the same gunman.

The death of Christian, a 34-year-old father of two young children, marked the first time an Athens police officer was gunned down in the line of duty since Herman Stein was shot and killed by a robbery suspect in 1936.

The dramatic events of that day began at about noon, when a 911 operator fielded a call that seemed too strange to be real.

A man reported that he had been kidnapped by Jamie Hood and forced into the trunk of a car. The man escaped from the trunk at a red light on Lexington Road and called 911.

Police issued a lookout for Hood, and Howard went to the area of Sycamore Drive off West Broad Street, a gang stronghold where he suspected Hood might try to hide out.

When Howard spotted Hood in an SUV being driven by Hood's brother, he stopped the vehicle. Hood shot Howard in the face and shoulder before the officer could get out of his patrol car.

As Hood ran from the wounded officer, he saw a patrol car driven by Christian arriving on the scene. Hood reportedly shot through the patrol car's driver's side window, instantly killing Christian, and fled the scene.

Senior Police Officer Jerry Johnson was the first to arrive in the shooting's immediate aftermath.

"When I saw it was Tony who was shot, I was very emotional, but I had to put the fact he was my brother-in-law aside and focus on being a police officer," Johnson recalled.

Johnson arrested Hood's brother, who had been driving the SUV that Howard had stopped, then turned his attention to helping Howard until paramedics arrived. He later joined many other officers at the hospital, where they kept vigil while doctors operated on Howard. The full impact of Christian's death hadn't yet set in because everyone was focused on finding Hood, who hid out for four days.

After the shooting, Hood fled into some woods, crossed the Middle Oconee River and carjacked a woman on Epps Bridge Road, He then made the woman get out of the car because she wasn't driving fast enough. He later ditched the vehicle on Athens' eastside, where officers searched four full days, beating the bushes, knocking down doors and flying overhead in helicopters.

"I have never seen our community's attention and emotions captured by one single incident like that in all my life," recalled Doc Eldridge, a lifelong Athens resident and former mayor.

Adding to the drama were the hundreds of state, local and federal officers from across Georgia - many on their own time - who converged on Athens to join the manhunt.

During the search, with each new tip or possible sighting of the suspect, convoys of police cars with sirens blaring became common across Athens.

"While it was going on, people locked their doors because there was a murderer on the loose and he was evading the authorities," Eldridge said. "This captured all our attention, and people turned on the TV and tuned in the radio, particularly on the east side of town where people thought (Hood) might have gone," the former mayor said. "I bet 90 percent of citizens tuned in as the events unfolded."

Authorities eventually tracked Hood to a home on Creekwood Drive, off Commerce Road, where he was holed up with eight people who police called hostages.

Afraid he would be killed in a hail of bullets, Hood negotiated by phone for hours with authorities, agreeing to surrender only on live television.

Two days after Hood was captured, Christian's family members and coworkers were finally able to focus on grieving.

In stark contrast to the day the officers were shot, the day of Christian's funeral, March 27th, was cold and gray. Still, thousands of people lined Broad Street and Atlanta Highway - from the Classic Center to Evergreen Memorial Park - and the only sound came from the hooves of horses that pulled a hearse bearing Christian's flag-draped coffin.

A Clarke County grand jury subsequently returned a 70-count indictment that charged Hood not just with murdering Christian and attempting to kill Howard, but also with the murder of an Athens man in December 2010. Prosecutors successfully argued that the two murder cases should be tried together because Kenneth Omari Wray's shooting death was part of Hood's alleged murderous spree that ended with the double cop-shooting.

Hood was convicted by jury on all counts and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole