08/29/2026
COLUMBIA OFFICER KILLED IN LINE OF DUTY LEAVES BEHIND WIFE, TWO YOUNG CHILDREN
⚫️🔵⚫️
📍Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia Police Officer Christopher DeLong was a husband, father of two young children, Gamecock fan and relatively new police officer when he was killed in the line of duty Saturday.
His wife is now sharing a glimpse of the man behind the badge and the family suddenly facing life without him.
The two had been together since she was 16, she wrote in an emotional post this afternoon.
“My person. My love. The best dad to our babies and the person I’ve been with since I was 16 was killed today in the line of duty,” she wrote.
She said she is struggling to process her husband’s death while also trying to care for their two children.
“I’m going through every stage of grief while also still remembering there’s two babies having to go through this as well,” she wrote.
The Columbia Police Department is expected to announce more soon about the shooting that took DeLong’s life and injured a second CPD officer.
This photo shared by the Columbia Police Department in January 2025 shows DeLong alongside Police Chief William “Skip” Holbrook after DeLong graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.
Please keep his family, brothers and sisters in blue, those dispatchers who dispatched every available unit to get him and his colleague help, along with his friends in your prayers.
A senseless tragedy. 💔
Stay safe out there and go home at the end of your shift. Take no chances.