EASTMAN — Hundreds of people — including law officers from around Georgia and the nation — mourned a slain Georgia police officer whose funeral was moved to a high school gymnasium to accommodate the huge crowd.

Nearly every seat was filled in Dodge County High School's gym for Thursday afternoon's funeral of Eastman Patrol Officer Timothy Smith, The Telegraph of Macon reported.

His cousin, Chris Rogers, told mourners that Smith knew he wanted to be a police officer from the time he was a child growing up on a farm in Bacon County.

"Everything that boy done revolved around being a police officer," Rogers said. "I don't think he would have had it any other way."

Smith was responding to a call of a suspicious person with a gun when he was shot Saturday in Eastman, a small town about 60 miles southeast of Macon, authorities said.

Authorities later apprehended 24-year-old Royheem Deeds and charged him with murder.

At Thursday's funeral, Smith's body was carried by the North Carolina Troopers Association Caisson Unit to a horse-drawn wagon, the Macon newspaper reported.

Those who knew the slain officer nicknamed "Turtle" recalled his passion for law enforcement, and how he'd followed in the footsteps of his grandfather as well as his father, Lewis Smith, 56, a Glenwood police officer who has been in law enforcement 29 years.

A day before burying his son, Lewis Smith said his son never knew he had touched "as many people's lives as he had with the thousands of people that have come out to support him."

A father to three children, Tim Smith had recently become engaged to Chelsea Clark, who manages a Flash Foods store in town.

Cries from their 5-month-old baby pierced the silent crowd as Smith's casket was closed for the final time, the Macon newspaper reported.

"Tim was the type of guy that if he loved you, he would hardly tell you, but he would show it with his actions," Rogers said. "Chelsea, you'll never know how much that boy loves you. That boy knew his hours were limited in the back of that ambulance . He kept saying, 'Tell Chelsea I love her.' "

Pastor Dahl McDermitt Jr., who runs the Refuge Recovery Ministry in town, said Smith was a family man who would "much rather help somebody than lock them up."

Law enforcement agencies in Bibb, Putnam, Baldwin, Pulaski, Oconee, Laurens and many other counties stood at attention as Smith's body was taken from the gym.

"There's a certain amount of anger, but not overwhelmingly," Smith's father said. "It's more being heartbroken than anything, knowing I'll never be able to see him again."