Police Unveil Plans for Memorial to Slain Officers

A full-size sketch of a planned memorial honoring San Diego police officers who have been killed in the line of duty was unveiled Monday by Police Chief Bill Kolender.

The 3,600-pound, black granite memorial will depict a male and a female police officer, a giant officer’s badge, and the names of the 26 officers who have been killed in the line of duty since 1913, said Police Officer Matt Weathersby. The L-shaped memorial will stand 6 1/2 feet tall.

“When a police officer dies, it is a loss not only to the department and the family, but to the people of San Diego as well,” Kolender said at the unveiling.

The memorial will also include a verse from a poem, “The Police Officer’s Prayer,” composed by Officer Willie P. Smith, Weathersby said.

The statue, paid for by a public fund established in January, 1985, is being built in Minnesota by Cold Springs Granite Co., police spokesman Bill Robinson said. Weathersby is chairman of the fund.

Weathersby said the department raised $15,500 over a 12-week period last year, through events that included a celebrity ice cream social and the auction of a Cabbage Patch doll dressed in a replica of a police uniform. Donations from “a cross section of the community,” according to Weathersby, included $2,000 from San Diego’s gay community, $1,000 from the San Diego Tuna Boat Assn. and $102 from Monterey Heights Elementary School.

“San Diego always comes through,” Weathersby said.

The memorial will cost $12,789. The rest of the money will cover installation and landscaping, Weathersby said.

The memorial should be finished next month. It will be stored until the Police Department moves to its new headquarters on Broadway at 14th Avenue in the fall, Weathersby said.