Orange breaks ground on park for slain deputy
The park is expected to open in 2018.
Sheriff Jerry Demings thanked Mayor Teresa Jacobs for the county’s recent practice of naming community parks after law enforcement officers slain in the line of duty.
“I hope we don’t have to do this many more times,” Demings said.
The community park, estimated to cost $9.7 million, will be home to the football stadium for the new Windermere High School, located about a mile away.
Jacobs said the park should serve as a reminder that “there are heroes among us, that there are people willing to go work every day to protect us, and they don’t ask thanks and they never ask to have a park named after them.”
Addressing the widow and her children, Jacobs said, “None of us can truly appreciate the pain and the loss that you’ve experienced. But I do want you to know that our whole community will never forget Scott, will never forget his service and his efforts to keep our community and our citizens safe. … He will be remembered most of all for how he lived and the sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice, that he gave to make our community a safer, more secure community.”
The park also will have another multipurpose field for community use.
Jacobs said she had “a really good conversation” with Ryker about the need for a playground in the park — and perhaps it could be called the Ryker Lot.
“We need to get that done pretty quickly,” Jacobs said.
The deputy has been honored in other ways.
The county renamed part of South Apopka-Vineland Road in his memory, and the YMCA in Winter Garden, where the late deputy’s family lives, installed a piece of exercise equipment — a knotted rope kids can climb to see his name at the top.
“The community continues to support my family,” his widow told the Orlando Sentinel in January after the slaying of Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton.
Bridget Pine also fought to see legislators pass a law ensuring the families of an officer slain in the line of duty get pension benefits.
Her husband left little money behind for his family.
His suspected shooter, Benjamin Holtermann, who also was a suspect in the car break-ins, killed himself. His girlfriend and accomplice, Erica Pugh, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Memorials are important to all law enforcement officers, Demings said during one of the dedications for deputy Pine.
“Whenever we see a community outpouring like this, it’s definitely warming to our hearts,” he said.