‘Changed my life forever’: I-85 bridge dedicated to slain CMPD officer Mia Goodwin
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings said he will never forget the phone call he received on a December night two years ago.
Officer Mia Goodwin was killed while directing traffic from an earlier wreck on Interstate 85, Jennings said he learned.
“It changed my life forever,” Jennings told CMPD officers and local and state officials who gathered Friday to dedicate the bridge on W.T. Harris Boulevard over I-85 in Goodwin’s memory. ”It changed many of you, many of your lives forever.”
Jennings remembered thinking “there’s one call you never, ever want to get, and that’s to find out you’ve lost one of your own.”
Goodwin, a six-year CMPD veteran, was the first woman officer in the department’s history to die in the line of duty.
“Having worked by her side, I can attest on these very streets that she was a God-loving, intelligent, compassionate young officer, destined for a stellar law enforcement career,” retired CMPD Sgt. Darrell Antley said.