"Heroes Live Forever" - the story of Rossford (OH) Patrolman Clifton T. Miller

He died in a vehicle crash during a high-speed pursuit. Left behind were an expectant 27-year-old wife and five children--one of whom became the national president of Concerns of Police Survivors.

Patrolman Clifton T. Miller

McLean, VA (April 7, 2026) - On May 14, 1966, Rossford (OH) Patrolman Clifton T. Miller, 30, died in an automobile crash while in “hot pursuit” of a traffic violator. In what many considered a terrible injustice, the suspect he was pursuing was acquitted of charges in connection with Officer Miller’s death in two separate trials. Survivors included an expectant wife and five young children. His eldest child, Brenda, who was only eight years old when her father died, explained how different her world became. “Even though we still lived in the same house, in the same community, with my same friends and siblings, everything felt different. I became insecure, and my ‘normal’ shifted. After all,” she said, “if Daddy left us so abruptly, what’s to say that Mom wouldn’t.” But many years after her father’s death, Brenda Donner carried his memory forward and became the National President of Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.). She explained the important work that C.O.P.S. does, saying, “We can never fix what was wrong, but we can try to help them understand they’ve got all of these services here to help people put one foot in front of the other.”

Listen to the podcast to hear the rest of the story: https://open.substack.com/pub/behindbadge/p/heroes-live-forever-the-story-of-7ab