through Lebanon toward East Rochester, N.H., at speeds up to 115 mph.
Jeff, then 35, just coming off his shift, got the call and took the lead position in a rolling roadblock on Route 202, trying to slow the boys down by positioning his cruiser in front of the van.
While attempting to slow the van down, it bumped the cruiser in the rear. Jeff’s patrol car skidded off the road to the right not too far from the intersection of Depot Road, went over five guardrails, flipped over several times, and finally came to a stop.
Jeff died at the scene.
But even in death, his droll wit and dry sense of humor lived on. When Roxanne Weeden, a younger sister, got the call that morning from police to come to Jeff’s house on Upper Guinea Road where his parents were living with him, “I thought it was Jeff playing a joke,” she said. “I thought it was just Jeff being funny. He was always doing that.”
But it was no joke. Jeff was dead, and the town of Lebanon had lost not only a caring cop, but a PTA president, a volunteer firefighter, a tireless volunteer for kids as well as a loving brother and father. Jeff left two daughters, who are both grown and still live in the area.
“Jeff was one of the most compassionate, loving, people you’ll ever meet,” said another sister, Tami (Bull) Beckwith of Florida. “He was funnier than hell. That was Jeffrey Lee Bull.”
One story she recalled vividly was how Jeff, on the eve of his police academy swim certification test, painted his roommate’s toenails pink while he was sleeping.
“He was very humorous, a dry humor,” echoed Roxanne Weeden. “He was always the life of the party.”
Marcia Lyford, the oldest of Jeff’s sisters who lives in Eddington, remembers him as a “very generous, loving person, who was always doing for somebody else.
“He did everything for his girls,” she added. “As a widower he tried to do the best for them. I miss talking to him. We’d talk late at night and chitchat about the kids after his kids and my kids were in bed.”
She also remembers the fun he had building a chimney on his Upper Guinea Road house. “He and his friends were building this chimney, and they had a few beers and it came out a little crooked,” she said.
Jeff was born Aug. 7, 1951, in Presque Isle and lived in the Lebanon area for about 10 years before he died. He graduated from Somersworth High School, Class of 1970, and from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy of Waterville.
Before his death, he worked two years on the Lebanon Police Department, where he meted out justice, compassion and humor in equal measures, Tami (Bull) Beckwith said.
“Jeff had a way of touching lives,” she said. “I know of several that he has positively Influenced. One is (assistant rescue chief) Jason Cole. Another is now a police officer (in New Hampshire), who Jeff stopped while on duty. The person was a teenager at the time. It was that encounter that influenced him to become a law enforcement officer.
After Jeff died more than 500 police officers from all over New England and the rest of the country and Canada attended his funeral at a Rochester church and burial in Farmington, N.H.
Also in attendance was then-Governor John R. McKernan Jr. as well as Public Safety and State Police officials.
The two teens involved in the chase served in juvenile detention centers until they were 21.
Tragically, several years before Jeff’s death, his wife, Kathy Drolet, died in a car crash; and his paternal grandmother died just hours before he died in the line of duty.
Beyond all the tragedy, the goodness of Jeff lives on. Tami (Bull) Beckwith remembers those huge dimples and the smile that lit up the room. And Roxanne Weeden remembers the whoopie pies she found in his freezer the day of his death, about five dozen, she said. “I took them home and kept them and didn’t want to eat them, because he made them and they were all I had.”
Courtesy photo
JEFF BULL, with his future bride, Kathy Drolet, at her high school graduation. She died in a car crash several years before Jeff lost his own life in the line of duty in 1987.
A big part of this year’s Community Festival on May 19 will be the honoring of Patrolman Jeffrey Lee Bull, who lost his life 25 years ago this month while serving the people of Lebanon as a town police officer, Any money raised will be used to establish a scholarship in his memory.
Jeff’s three sisters and their families as well as other family members and friends will be on hand, some coming from as far away as Florida.
A link to the event’s Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/events/126604610806898/
Community Day
will honor Jeffrey
Tribute to a HERO
Jeffrey Lee Bull
August 7, 1951-May 9, 1987
A quarter century after his death, his life resonates in his wit, his wisdom and his humanity.
It’s been 25 years since Jeffrey Lee Bull died, but for those who knew and loved him, his presence, his wit, his compassion and caring is still very much alive.
It seems like only yesterday he was playing Santa at a Lebanon schoolhouse, baking whoopie pies and selling “Bull-ogna” sandwiches at his East Rochester sub shop and patrolling Lebanon as an officer of the town’s small police force.
But all that changed in the blink of an eye on the morning of Saturday, May 9, 1987, when two young boys stole their grandfather’s guns and van and led police on a chase east on 202
'Jeff was one of the most compassionate, loving, people you’ll ever meet. He was funnier than hell. That was Jeffrey Lee Bull.'
- Tami (Bull) Beckwith,
sister
A sign at Bull Field behind the Hanson School commemorates the sacrifice of Jeffrey Lee Bull.
