Plaque Given Family of Slain Officer

Under slate-gray skies, and in front of a fountain inscribed with the names of fallen police officers, city officials on Wednesday gave the family of Christy Lynne Hamilton a plaque bearing mementos of her service, including her revolver and award pins.

One year ago, Hamilton, a rookie officer with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire division, was shot to death after responding to a domestic dispute in Northridge. The 45-year-old officer, who had been with the force for only four weeks, became the second female LAPD officer to die in the line of duty.

In a noontime ceremony Wednesday at Parker Center in Los Angeles, Police Chief Willie Williams praised Hamilton for her dedication and sense of public duty.

“She began her third career at a time when most people start thinking about settling down,” he said. “She made a decision that she wanted to serve the public in another way.”

The overcast skies reflected the event’s mood, attended by about 250 people, mostly Hamilton’s classmates at the Police Academy and colleagues from the Devonshire Division.

As Williams and City Councilman Joel Wachs delivered short speeches, Hamilton’s family--including her two children, her parents, and brother--stood by, somber expressions on their faces. At one point, Hamilton’s daughter, Kelley Steven, rested her head on her grandmother’s shoulder.

Hamilton’s family became the first to receive the plaque--known as a “shadow box”--under a new law that allows the city to give small personal effects of slain police officers to their families. Previously, the department was allowed only to give a simpler plaque bearing the officer’s badge to bereaved families.

The shadow box, framed in polished wood and lined in blue velour, contained Hamilton’s 9-millimeter Beretta, a copper marksmanship medal, a shiny cap ornament, whistle, handcuffs and other items. The cost of assembling the plaque was about $1,000, said Officer Angie Hougen of the LAPD’s personnel department.

Hamilton’s mother, Margie Hoffberg, said it means a lot to her to receive her daughter’s things “because her hands touched them. It was on her body.”

After Hougen informed Wachs that the old law restricted the Police Department to giving bereaved families the more austere memorial, Wachs pushed through the new law, which went into effect last November.

Kenneth Brondell, Hamilton’s father, said after all the support the department has given his family--such as helping stage the funeral attended by thousands of police officers and friends--it would not have bothered him to have had to pay for the plaque.

Still, he said, he appreciated the gesture. “It’ll be a keepsake that goes from one generation to the next,” said Brondell, himself a police officer for 30 years.

Before the ceremony, Hamilton’s family gathered for a private memorial service at the police officer’s grave at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in the Hollywood Hills. There, family members shared remembrances of the plucky Hamilton and played a tape of a Mariah Carey song, “The Hero Inside of You.”

“I woke up this morning and felt a lot of peace,” Kelley Steven said after the ceremony at police headquarters. “A year had passed and I know she was with me always.”