East Point police detective dies in surgery

EAST POINT, Ga. — An East Point police detective and member of the SWAT team died in surgery Thursday.

Detective Toure Heywood was an officer at Georgia State University and was run over by suspects during a traffic stop 12 years ago.

That one incident has caused him lifelong problems that resulted in his death.

Toure started out as a Marine, went on to be a corrections officer and then graduated from the police academy to be a cop at the GSU Police Department.
 
In Sept. 30, 2003, he pulled over a group of kids in what he thought was a routine traffic stop.

He was currently a detective with the East Point Police Department.

"It was a Cadillac Catera. I remember the car got hit by the vehicle, went up in the air, hit head-on,” he told Channel 2’s Liz Artz. “I woke up a couple days later. I was in ICU, groggy. I open my eyes, they had me in isolation."

Doctors removed his spleen, and his gallbladder and realized he'd been bleeding internally.

Toure’s stomach, liver, pancreas, upper bowel and lower bowel all needed to be replaced. He was put on a donors list for a multivisceral organ transplant.

On May 28, 2015, Toure died in surgery.

The East Point Police Department says it is saddened by the news and is asking for prayers for Toure’s family.

WSBTV