Obituaries

Trailblazing LBPD Officer Dies at 69

Alonzo Merkerson remembered as first black to join police department.


Alonzo Merkerson, a trailblazing police officer who earned the rank of sergeant in the Long Beach Police Department, died in North Carolina on Dec. 25.

Both Merkerson and Simon Portee were the first blacks hired onto the LBPD on Aug. 22, 1966, and during his 36 years with the department, Merkerson become the first black assigned to the detective division, and, in 1989, the first black uniformed sergeant, according to Legacy.com. He retired in 2002 and settled in Raeford, NC.

Merkerson is also remembered as an active member of the NAACP in Long Beach during the 1960s, as well as one of the founders of the Martin Luther King Center on Riverside Boulevard.

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Merkerson died in Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Feyetteville, NC., and was buried at Fayetteville Memorial Cemetery.


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