Montco Officer Killed In The Line Of Duty Remembered 18 Years Later

UPPER DUBLIN, PA — Wednesday marked 18 years since the Upper Dublin Police Department lost one of its only officers ever in the line of duty.

Sgt. James Miller, a veteran officer with the suburban Montgomery County department, died during the early-morning hours of April 20, 2004, when his patrol vehicle was involved in an accident on the 1700 block of Dreshertown Road.

Miller, who was 55 years old, was a husband, father and a beloved member of the Upper Dublin Police Department, where he had worked for more than a quarter-century.

"He was a cop's cop. The way he treated cops is the way he treated the whole public," recalled Mike Dayoc, a retired Upper Dublin Police detective who worked at the department from 1981 to 2007. "Jimmy had no animosity toward anybody. He was just one of those who you wish cops would be today."

Dayoc, now chief investigator for the Montgomery County Public Defender's Office, spoke with Patch on Wednesday, which marked the 18th anniversary of Miller's death.

The exact cause of the single-vehicle accident that claimed Miller's life was never determined; Dayoc said Miller had apparently swerved to get out of the way of something, but it was never discovered what that something was.

Miller's vehicle had rolled over during the accident, ejecting Miller, according to a past report in the Ambler Gazette. The crash occurred around 4:30 in the morning.

Miller's death had reverberated around Montgomery County and beyond, particularly because he was such a well-loved officer.

"You couldn't meet a nicer guy," said Dayoc, who knew Miller for 23 years.

Dayoc said Miller, also a proud military member, having served in the Air National Guard, was an active member of the community who was involved with things like Boys Scouts of America.

"He was very great with kids," Dayoc said.

Dayoc also said Miller was very dedicated to his wife and children, saying, "his family was everything to him."

And, of course, Miller was a very accomplished police officer who had risen to the rank of sergeant.

"His biggest thing was the job itself," Dayoc recalled. "He was very dedicated to police work."

According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, Miller served 28 years with the Upper Dublin Police Department.

He was survived by a wife, two children and two grandchildren.

Others who knew and worked with Miller also recall him fondly.

"You hear that term a cop's cop often. But that was absolutely Jim Miller," said Lee Benson, who worked for the Upper Dublin Police Department for 34 years. "He was a cop's cop that everybody looked up to. We looked up to Jim for mentoring and guidance and how to do the job."

Benson, who is now the chief of police for the West Whiteland Township Police Department in Chester County, recalled that Miller was already a sergeant when Benson started with the department back in 1985.

"As a young junior sergeant, I looked up to him," said Benson, who had risen to the rank of chief at Upper Dublin before leaving the department in 2019.

Benson recalls the difficult moment of having to be the one to speak with the media during the press conference announcing Miller's death back in 2004.

He remembers the difficulty of having to address the press during such a difficult time for the department.

Benson will always remember Miller. In fact, it was Benson who filled out the application to have Miller's name added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial wall down in Washington, D.C.

"I always took that on as sort of an honor," he said.

After the name was added to the wall, Benson made a stone rubbed, carbon copy of the name on a piece of paper that he still has with him today. It sits on a shelf in his office at the West Whiteland Police Department to remind him of his old friend.

Another former coworker of Miller's was Dan Wade, who was a detective at Upper Dublin back in 2004, the year of Miller's passing.

Today, Wade serves as the deputy chief at the Upper Dublin Police Department, where he has worked his entire career.

"I remember his smile," Wade told Patch. "His smile would light up the room."

Wade, who started at Upper Dublin as a police intern way back in 1996, said Miller was his sergeant up until the time Wade made detective around 2002.

"He was a great leader. The sergeant that everybody would want to be," Wade recalled. "To me he was a mentor. From the day I got hired, he was the embodiment of what a police officer was really supposed to be."

Wade said Miller was a very active community member who loved to give back.

As for the exact cause of death, it was the car wreck that claimed Miller's life, although it was never determined what caused the vehicle to swerve and overturn.

Benson said that times were different back in the early 2000s, since police cameras weren't very prevalent then, so there was no type of recording of the accident. And there were apparently no eyewitnesses, since it was during the early morning hours when most people would have been asleep.

Upper Dublin did bring on an accident reconstructionist from neighboring Horsham Township, Benson said, but nothing conclusive ever came out of it.

"It was always sort of a mystery what exactly happened," Benson said about the fatal accident.

For now, those who knew Miller best cherish the memories of their fallen friend and coworker and look fondly on the times they had with a man who relished the opportunity to protect the community he served.