Fallen Officers Remembered in Ceremony

Lauren Barron won’t waltz with her father at her quinceanera next year. She won’t hear him call her “Porky” and she won’t receive his help with homework.

Los Angeles Police Det. Abiel “Abe” Barron died last year after a truck collided with the car he and his partner were driving home after relocating a witness.

On Monday, Lauren’s 13-year-old voice wobbled with emotion as she recited the Pledge of Allegiance at a National Police Week ceremony to commemorate her father and Los Angeles’ other fallen officers.

About 300 officers, city officials, politicians and relatives gathered for the memorial in the hot midday sun outside Los Angeles Police Department headquarters.

“I came with a positive attitude,” Lauren said afterward. “And then I saw my dad’s partner Andy and that brought on the tears.”

She recalled how her dad, the “history freak,” used to call and ask if she needed help with schoolwork. Though her parents were divorced, he would attend her water polo tournaments and swim meets.

Sometimes he’d even show up at school in uniform just to tap her on the shoulder and say hi. He would tease her about her cookie-intensive diet, but then would make her little cakes inscribed with her nickname.

“My heart is pretty empty without him,” Lauren said.

LAPD officials said almost 200 officers have given their lives on the job since 1907.

“We understand that when we pin this badge on, when we take that oath of office, we may be expected to make that sacrifice,” Chief William J. Bratton said. “We hope that [we] never have to.”

In good years, he said, “there are no names to be added” to the granite towers in a pool outside Parker Center. “But this has not been a good year for the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Barron and Officer Ricardo Lizarraga, who was killed in February while responding to a domestic violence call, were both honored Monday. Their names already have been chiseled into the memorial.

“To the families of those that have had to pay that sacrifice, you know that you are in our hearts,” Mayor James K. Hahn said. “We honor you parents, children, brothers, sisters, partners, colleagues.”

Widow Belinda Gajda, 35, cried throughout the ceremony. Her husband, Officer Steven Gajda, was killed on her birthday in 1998.

“Part of my hurt was I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she said. But this ceremony helps “to honor him within myself.”