Westerville honors fallen officers

As the tributes and mementos piled up so high around Westerville Police Officer Anthony Morelli’s SUV that the stacked bouquets of flowers kept sliding off the hood, the Rev. James Meacham sat inside City Hall and cried.

For 46 years, the pastor has served as chaplain of the Westerville Police Department, and nothing in that time had prepared him for the darkness that descended on the city on Saturday, when Morelli and fellow officer Eric Joering were shot to death while responding to a 911 hang-up call in the 300 block of Cross Wind Drive. Quentin Lamar Smith has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder in their deaths.

But on Sunday, Meacham and the hundreds of people who stopped by City Hall and police headquarters to pay respects — and the hundreds more who gathered at two community vigils — didn’t want to talk about the violence that

Westerville Police Sgt. Greg LeValley is consoled by the Rev. James Meacham, a department chaplain, before speaking at a gathering Sunday at Westerville North High School.