Building to get longtime sheriff's name today

RALEIGH -- Wake County officials will memorialize former Sheriff John H. Baker Jr. today when they officially rename the Wake Public Safety Center he was instrumental in getting built downtown.

Baker was 72 when he died in his sleep last November. The hulking, gravel-voiced but soft-spoken former NFL defensive lineman served as Wake County sheriff for 24 years, from 1978 to 2002. He was one of the longest-serving sheriffs in Wake County history and the first elected black sheriff in North Carolina since Reconstruction.

Baker modernized the sheriff's office, started the county's gun permit system and formed the first homicide unit for the sheriff's office. He also hired more patrol officers and campaigned for the $56 million needed to build what will now be known as The Wake County John H. Baker Jr. Public Safety Center, which houses the county sheriff's office, public safety department and jail.

"We are elated. We are overjoyed," his son, John H. Baker III, said of the honor.

The younger Baker, men's varsity basketball coach and a health teacher at Southeast Raleigh High School, noted that the naming of the public safety center after his father will take place 20 years after the Raleigh Police Department named its police training center on Spring Forest Road after his grandfather, John H. Baker Sr., the city's first black police officer.

"It's a great accomplishment for the Baker family to have two buildings in Wake County dedicated to my father and grandfather," he said.

Baker said his mother, Juanita Baker, approached Van Eure, co-owner of the Angus Barn restaurant, about the idea of encouraging county commissioners to rename the public safety center after the former sheriff. The chorus of support was picked up by current Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison, Baker said.

"Donnie Harrison has been very supportive," Baker said. "He and my father campaigned hard against each other, but the bottom line is he has an ultimate respect for my father."

County commissioners voted unanimously in early summer to rename the building after Baker. The new name now sits atop a banner of stone in raised green lettering, between the hefty pillars that frame the entrance to the building.