Fallen Heroes : Annual Memorial Pays Tribute to 9 Officers Killed in the Line of Duty

A solemn memorial ceremony was held Wednesday at Los Angeles County sheriff’s facilities in Whittier to mark the death in the last year of nine law enforcement officers “who sacrificed their lives in the performance of their sworn duty.”

Only in 1964 and 1978 did more officers in Los Angeles County lose their lives, according to plaques memorializing the 382 who have died on the job since 1857.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers and relatives came to honor California Highway Patrolman Fidel Aleman, Compton Police officers Kevin M. Burrell and James W. MacDonald, Southern California Rapid Transit District Officer Edward E. Reed Jr., Los Angeles Police officers Edward S. Kislo, Raymond A. Messerly Jr. and David C. Schmid, Sheriff’s Deputy Richard B. Hammack and Maywood Officer John A. Hoglund.

“Not gold, but only men and women can make a nation strong,” said Sheriff Sherman Block, paraphrasing the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, after a bugler played taps.

Memorial events began over the weekend, when 600 of Block’s deputies and other law enforcement officers participated in a relay run connecting every mainland sheriff’s station in the county, covering 340 miles.

They carried a torch that Block said “symbolized the determination that their fallen brothers and sisters over the years will never be forgotten.”

Delivering the keynote address, the commander of the California National Guard, Maj. Gen. Tandy Bozeman, said California law enforcement faces “a greater challenge than law enforcement officers in any other state. . . . “

“Sometimes at the end of a particularly frustrating and ugly day, you must wonder, ‘Was it really worth it?’ ” Bozeman said. “Does anybody in our society give a damn? The answer of course is a resounding yes!

“We have to take the heat, we have to take the bullets, the budget cuts, the demand to do more with less. . . . We will not falter. We will not let our fallen comrades down. With courage and fidelity we continue in the tradition of the brave men we honor today.”

As a bagpiper played and flags were lowered to half-staff, the dead officers’ commanders, including Block and Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams, presented wreaths in their honor at the memorial wall built in 1986. The memorial ceremony has been held since 1970 in honor of officers who died in the previous 12 months.

Aleman was shot by a motorist he encountered on the Harbor Freeway on July 23. The Compton officers, Burrell and MacDonald, were shot Feb. 22 when they pulled over a pickup truck. Reed became the first Rapid Transit District policeman killed in 14 years when his patrol car was hit by a drunk driver who ran a red light Feb. 21.

LAPD Officer Kislo was killed Aug. 23 when he went to a neighbor’s back yard to investigate reports of a prowler. Messerly, another Los Angeles officer, died after his patrol car collided with another vehicle in Van Nuys during an Oct. 21 chase. The third LAPD officer, Schmid, died of injuries he suffered Dec. 16 when his motorcycle collided with a car in Lancaster.

Deputy Hammack was shot to death May 11, 1992, when narcotics investigators raided a suspected methamphetamine sales den in Palmdale. Maywood Officer Hoglund was killed by armed robbers May 29 when he responded to a silent burglar alarm at a market.