A Holiday Memorial Cast in Blue

The strands of blue lights strung outside Don Burt’s home this Christmas aren’t just a capricious change from the multicolored lights of years past.

They shine in honor of his son, who was a rookie officer with the California Highway Patrol. They also symbolize the blue lights that were flashing on the younger Don Burt’s cruiser when he was shot seven times by a driver he pulled over at a gas station in Fullerton 17 months ago.

“With the blue lights, it helps to remind people that your loved one is gone” and that other officers still on the streets take the same risks daily, said Burt, a CHP sergeant in Riverside who lives in Perris.

The lights are repeated in homes throughout the country as part of a growing commemoration by families of slain officers.

Project Blue Light, as it is called, began in 1988 when the mother-in-law of a Pennsylvania police officer killed in the line of duty placed a single blue bulb in the front window of her home.

“It took off from there,” said Terrie Soper, spokeswoman for Concerns Of Police Survivors (COPS), a national nonprofit group formed in 1984 to assist the families of slain officers.

In New Jersey, more than 800 blue bulbs adorn a pine tree in front of the home of a state trooper who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in 1981, three days before Christmas.

Blue lights adorn the Christmas tree of a Massachusetts woman who learned she was pregnant one week after she buried her husband, an officer shot in 1985.

A Florida man who lost one of his twin sons to a bullet from a drifter’s .357 revolver now outlines his Fort Lauderdale-area home in blue lights during the holidays.

The Newport Beach Police Department has decorated its station in blue lights for the holidays in honor of Officer Bob Henry, killed on April 13, 1995, by a distraught man who then shot himself.

The custom of the lights “is starting to grow,” said Denise Jacobs, president of the Police Survivors Support Network, an offshoot of COPS in Southern California.

“Departments are becoming more and more aware of it. It’s letting everyone--and each other--know we haven’t forgotten.”

Jacobs’s husband, CHP Officer Hugo Olazar, was killed by a drunk driver in San Francisco in 1989. She has since remarried, to Newport Beach Police Capt. Jim Jacobs.

Police work consistently ranks among the most dangerous, according to statistics kept by the national Occupational Safety and Health Administration. COPS has tallied 1,949 officers killed in the United States in the line of duty since 1985, including 147 this year.

For the past three years, California has led the nation in that statistic and is poised to do so again this year, according to government records. Since 1990, 107 officers in the state have been killed on the job.

Richard Sherman, a clinical psychologist who lectures at Cal State Northridge, compared the blue lights to the yellow ribbons posted by the families of soldiers during wartime.

“Whether it’s a blue light or a yellow ribbon, it provides a sense of bonding,” Sherman said. “It’s not only for those who are suffering a loss, but it allows others to show caring, support and respect. It’s really a pulling together.”

Soper, the COPS spokeswoman, said she does not see a conflict with the Jewish tradition of displaying blue lights during Hanukkah.

“They both call attention to very worthy causes,” she said.

While Project Blue Light seeks to evoke positive feelings toward police officers, the lights also mark individual tragedies.

In Springfield, Mass., the blue lights in the bushes outside Doris Beauregard-Shecrallah’s home burn in memory of her former husband, Alain, who was 29 when he and his partner were shot to death in November 1985.

A week after she buried her husband, Beauregard-Shecrallah, who has since remarried, got the bittersweet news that she was pregnant with their second child.

Donna Lamonaco and her children were at home baking Christmas cookies in 1981 when her husband, a New Jersey state trooper, was shot to death.

She recalled how two of Philip Lamonaco’s fellow troopers came to her door. It was three days before Christmas.

“I didn’t think anything of it,” said Lamonaco, 47. “I told them Phil would be home in a few minutes. Then one of them took the baby out of my arms and told me to sit down.”

Struggling to find new ways to celebrate the season, the family three years ago began decorating a large pine tree in their front yard with blue lights, 800 of them.

Burt said he and his wife also will trim their tree this year all in blue lights and burn a candle in their son’s honor. Last year at Christmastime, his death was still too close for them to muster such a homage.

The man accused of killing him is scheduled for trial in April.

And while every day is painful since he was killed, Burt said, “The remembrance lets us know that we had our son, and how much of a joy he was, that he was such a wonderful child and a good person.”

Burt has one request for anyone passing his home who notices the blue lights:

“Say a prayer for the ones that are gone, and say a special prayer for the ones who are still here. Ask for their protection.”