Fallen Island Mountie added to honour roll
As he concluded the ceremony Sunday in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, Chaplain Jim Turner told those attending the British Columbia Law Enforcement Memorial that, by this time next year, he hopes for one thing.
“It is my prayer that, by this time next year, we will have no more names to add to the honour roll,” Turner told the crowd.
The annual ceremony is well attended by representatives of B.C’s law enforcement and public safety community and their counterparts in the United States.
The new name Turner was talking about was the Const. Sarah Beckett of the RCMP’s West Shore detachment on Vancouver Island, who was killed April 5 when her police cruiser was hit by a pickup truck in a Langford intersection.
A member of the RCMP for 11 years, Beckett, 32, left behind husband Brad Aschenbrenner and two young sons, Lucas and Emmit, who attended the Canadian Police and Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday, one of several ceremonies across the country where Beckett was honoured.
Beckett’s name also was added to an honour roll, cenotaph and memorial wall at the RCMP’s national memorial service for fallen members Sunday. The memorial ceremony is held annually at RCMP Depot Division in Regina, where the force’s academy is located.
The addition of Beckett’s name to the memorial brings the total number of fallen members to 237 since the creation of the North-West Mounted Police in 1873.
During the Vancouver ceremony, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens said a death among the ranks is a burden on everyone in the force.
“We are here to honour those police office who have made the ultimate sacrifice,” said Callens.
“Fresh in our minds is Const. Beckett,” he said. “I can tell you Sarah exemplified the very best.”
Callens said it is the families of the police officers who live with the risk day in and day out that need to be remembered for their courage.
“Sadly, and too often, those fami- lies must bare the loss of a loved one forever,” he said.
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer said that when one agency loses an officer in the line of duty, everyone grieves.
“We reflect, we mourn we pray and we cry for those we miss,” he told the crowd at the Brockton Oval ceremony. “All we can do to ease the collective loss is come together like today.”
U.S. Consul General Lynne Platt said that, on both sides of the border, the loss of an officer in the line of duty is profound.
Kenneth Jacob Fenton is facing five criminal charges in Beckett’s death including impaired driving causing death, flight from police causing death, dangerous driving causing death, driving with a blood-alcohol content in excess of 80 milligrams and refusing to provide a sample of his blood.