A6 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2022
OREGON
BEND
‘Hero’ killed in shooting remembered as kind man
BY SUZANNE ROIG
and BRYCE DOLE
The Bulletin
Every week over a span of
several years, Donald Surrett
Jr. would ask his co-workers
in the floral department of
Bend’s east-side Safeway to set
aside the nicest, biggest bunch
of stargazer lilies so he could
take them home to his wife.
The floral staff would set
them aside in the walk-in
cooler, and before he’d leave
for the night, he’d pay for those
flowers. It’s a fond memory for
Lisa Morrison, who worked
with Surrett for nearly three
years at the Safeway store be-
fore retiring in December.
Now, it’s a memory Morri-
son is holding onto tightly.
Surrett was one of two peo-
ple killed Sunday night, Aug.
28 when a 20-year-old gun-
man from Bend walked into
the grocery store near NE
27th Street and U.S. Highway
20 with an AR-15 style rifle
and opened fire on innocent
shoppers. The 66-year-old
Surrett was shot as he tried
to disarm the gunman, but
police say his actions likely
prevented further bloodshed.
Moments before his encounter
with Surrett, the gunman also
fatally shot Glenn Bennett, 84,
of Bend.
What Surrett did in his fi-
nal moments was no surprise
to those who knew him, espe-
cially after police called his ac-
tions heroic.
“Video surveillance shows
that upon hearing gunshots
in the Safeway, victim Don-
ald Surrett Jr., had ample time
to flee the scene but instead
moved a produce cart into
position to hide from the at-
tacker,” Bend Police spokes-
woman Sheila Miller said in a
news release Tuesday. “When
the suspect approached, Sur-
rett waited for the suspect to
look away, then attacked the
suspect with a produce knife
he kept on his hip.”
Still, none of this is easy
for Morrison to reconcile. An
active shooter was her worst
nightmare, a scenario that had
prompted her to plan escape
routes when she worked at
Safeway.
“This is so surreal,” said
Morrison, 62. “I feel like I’m
trapped in a nightmare. Don
was a kind and caring man.”
It was just a week ago when
Morrison checked in with
Surrett while shopping. Since
retiring, she’s made weekly
trips to the store for groceries.
She always sought out Surrett
and they’d chat, sometimes
about his wife, Jacky, who was
on disability.
How was his wife? How
were things? Often, Morri-
son and Surrett chatted about
mundane subjects, the things
friends shared.
Morrison worked for seven
years in the store’s floral de-
partment. Surrett worked
in the produce department,
a job he took after working
at the U.S. Forest Service at
Newberry National Volca-
nic Monument from 2013 to
2017. After that, he worked
as a custodian at Central Or-
egon Community College for
six months, in 2017 and 2018,
forging ties with people there
who would often drive across
town to visit with their friend.
Surrett would train the
newly hired produce clerks
in the produce department at
Safeway, Morrison said.
“He had a lot of patience
to train them on how to do
the job well,” she said. “He
had ideas on how to make
the produce department run
smoother and cared about do-
ing a good job. His motto was,
work smarter, not harder.”
An Army veteran, Surrett
was proud of his military ex-
perience, Morrison said. He’d
wear military and union but-
tons on his hat.
“He was a total patriot. He
had a strong constitution,”
Morrison said.
Surrett’s actions have
prompted an outpouring of
community support to help
his wife. A GoFundMe ac-
count set up by Surrett’s sis-
ter-in-law, Jerilynn Morra, had
an initial goal of $8,000 but
by early evening Tuesday had
grown to more than $56,000.
And 140 Safeway and Alb-
ertsons stores in Oregon and
A card thank-
ing Safeway
employee
Donald Sur-
rett Jr. is dis-
played at a
memorial
where Safe-
way employ-
ees wait Tues-
day, Aug. 30,
2022, to claim
their posses-
sions left in
the store af-
ter the shoot-
ing at the
Forum Shop-
ping Center in
Bend.
Dean Guernsey/
The Bulletin
Southern Washington will be
collecting donations at check-
out stands through Sept. 5 for
those impacted by the tragedy
in Bend, according to a com-
pany spokeswoman.
The outpouring of sup-
port is a testament to Surrett’s
character, said Gail Whelan,
who worked with Surrett at
the national monument. In
fact, when Whelan and Surrett
were on the same schedule at
the Lava Lands Visitors Cen-
ter, they’d eat lunch together at
a picnic table.
They called the table the
Lava Lands Cafe.
“He was an all-around good
person,” Whelan said. “He was
a kind person. He was funny.
He liked everyone. He bent
over backward to help people.”
Surrett enlisted in the Army
out of high school, serving as a
combat engineer during his 26
years in the military, accord-
ing to his ex-wife, Debora Jean
Surrett.
He moved to La Pine more
than a decade ago and became
involved in the local chapter of
the Disabled American Veter-
ans, serving as treasurer and
secretary.
Veterans across Deschutes
County remember Surrett, in
the brief moments they met
him, as a dependable, hard-
working man.
Robert Cusick, a 75-year-
old member of the Veterans
of Foreign Wars who worked
with Surrett, said he wasn’t
surprised by Surrett’s heroics.
It was what he was trained to
do, said Cusick.
“If it wasn’t for him, there’d
probably be a whole lot more
dead people,” Cusick said. “I
feel he died too young.”
On Sunday, about an hour
before the shooting, Naomi
Landon, a 38-year-old nutri-
tion specialist for Bend-La
Pine Schools, was shopping at
the Safeway with her 5-year-
old son. In her weekly visits
over the past nine years, she
has grown close with the gro-
cery store staff, who are always
asking about her three grow-
ing boys.
Among them was a man
she would always see rush-
ing to meet customers’ needs:
Surrett.
It was no different Sunday.
Landon and her son were
discussing what kind of apples
they should buy when Sur-
rett chimed in. Placing apples
on display one by one, he told
them that his favorites were
the yellow ones. He named
the different types, and he said
he was sad because Safeway
was about to discontinue the
sweetest apples there are.
He told them that the secret
to making a great apple pie
was mixing a whole variety of
apples together. His wife, he
said, makes the best apple pie
in Bend.
“It was just an innocent,
passing conversation,” Landon
said.
Now, Landon is trying to
help her son understand what
happened to that nice man
who spoke to them about the
apples he loves. She tells her
son that he was brave, that he
sacrificed his own life to save
others.
“He totally was a hero, and
it makes me sad to think of
what happened,” she said, cry-
ing. “He didn’t deserve that.”
It’s no surprise that Surrett’s
friend, Morrison, is think-
ing about the stargazer lilies
the Safeway staff regularly set
aside.
In the coming weeks, she
and other Safeway workers
plan to take a big bunch of
stargazer lilies over to Surrett’s
home in La Pine as a tribute
to him.
No one wants Surrett’s
widow to think her husband
has been forgotten, Morrison
said.
“We thought it might be
a comfort to her,” Morrison
said. “Maybe later, we thought,
we’d go after everything settles
down. My grief will be with
me for the rest of my life. This
is a horrendous incident that
we thought would never hap-
pen in Bend.”
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