Police Officer Turning 92 Will Get Parade For His Birthday

CAMDEN, AR — Many police departments across the country have an age ceiling, usually somewhere in the mid-30s, when someone becomes too old to be eligible to join the force as a rookie cop.

There’s no age ceiling for L.C. “Buckshot” Smith, who joined the Camden Police Department in central Arkansas well into his mid-80s. Smith already spent some 46 years with the Ouachita County Sheriff’s Office, where he was a sheriff's deputy, and didn’t last more than a few months in retirement.

Now, the city of Camden is planning a parade to celebrate the police officer's 92nd birthday.

Residents of the city where everyone seems to know “Buckshot” will mark yet another year of public service for someone who is believed to be Arkansas’ oldest active police officer, with a Saturday parade through the city’s downtown.

As the Camden Police Department’s community watch coordinator, Smith continues to put in eight-hour shifts, four days a week, according to news outlets featuring him and his plan to keep working even after turning 92.

"I feel like, I live longer at my age to keep on working," Smith told KTHV-Little Rock. "A lot of people my age and younger will tell you they wish they had kept working.”

Camden resident Mike Sherman, a friend of Smith's, told the news outlet Smith "gets around pretty darn good for his age."

"The thing with Buckshot is he's been around so long, when someone says I know everybody, Buckshot knows everybody," Sherman said. "Buckshot leads by example, and that's what we need more of."

Smith said he worked for “nothing” when he first got a job as a police officer in the 1960s.

“I just liked the job,” he said in another segment on saluting local heroes.

It was the excitement that drove Smith to a career in policing, he told CNN, but would still “rather take people home, than take them to jail.”