Arkansas’ fallen officers remembered
State joins rest of U.S. with ceremonies to honor law enforcers killed on duty
A clergyman called out names one by one. The ring of a bell echoed during the silence in between.
The 23 names also served as a backdrop for the speaker. They were etched in stone on the Fallen Officers Memorial at the Little Rock Police Department’s headquarters on Markham Street, where white brick columns were adorned in red, white and blue draping Friday.
Across Arkansas and the nation, police departments and officers’ family members gathered Friday to remember law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty throughout the years. The Little Rock department has lost a total of 23 officers.
Last year in Arkansas, three law enforcement officers died on the job: Yell County Sheriff Lt. Kevin Clyde Mainhart, Newport Police Department Lt. Patrick Neal Weatherford, and Drew County Deputy Timothy Braden. They were recognized at the state Capitol on Friday at the state Peace Officers Memorial service.
There was also a ceremony at the Arkansas State Police headquarters in Little Rock on Friday morning, where that organization honored its 19 total fallen officers and those officers’ family members. The ceremonies precede National Police Week, which begins Sunday.
Across the country and American territories last year, 129 law enforcement officers died on the job. So
far this year, 53 have been killed in the line of duty.
Speakers at the Little Rock and state Capitol ceremonies Friday said they believe the law enforcement profession is under attack.
Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner said that for decades the No. 1 cause of on-duty officer deaths was vehicle accidents. For the past five years or so, he said, assaults have been the top cause.
“The job is increasingly difficult. It’s not for everyone,” he said.
Someone read the Bible verse John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
At the state Capitol ceremony, the young son of Weatherford looked through his glasses at his crying mother as she accepted a bouquet of roses from the president of the state Fraternal Order of Police.
After the ceremony, Gov. Asa Hutchinson told the boy that he could act as governor for the day, and the boy’s eyes lit up behind his glasses. He smiled and enthusiastically accepted the gesture.
Weatherford’s wife, who preferred that her name and that of her son not be printed, said the outpouring of support from the police community — especially the Newport Police Department, where her husband worked, and the Concerns of Police Survivors group — has been strong and essential after her husband’s death.
“I couldn’t even tell you who mowed my yard last year. I just know it got done,” she said.
Newport Lt. Allen Edwards said he always thought Weatherford would leave the department, likely to be hired away by a bigger agency or a higher-paying, private-sector job. He never thought it would be because of a bullet shot by a 16-year-old boy.
Weatherford was shot and killed June 12 while pursuing a suspect on foot after a reported vehicle theft. He had served on the Newport Police Department for 15 years and was working in the Criminal Investigation Division. He was 41 years old and a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
A police officer’s job has always been hard, but it’s getting harder, said E. Kim Fifer, a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, whose father was a police officer who died while on duty.
Fifer read Policeman, a prose by Paul Harvey.
“What is a policeman made of?” the piece says. “He, of all men, is once the most needed and the most unwanted. He’s a strangely nameless creature who is ‘sir’ to his face and ‘fuzz’ to his back. … He must make an instant decision which would require months for a lawyer to make. … The police officer must know every gun, draw on the run, and hit where it doesn’t hurt. He must be able to whip two men twice his size and half his age without damaging his uniform and without being ‘brutal.’ If you hit him, he’s a coward. If he hits you, he’s a bully. … The policeman must be a minister, a social worker, a diplomat, a tough guy and a gentleman.”
“And, of course, he’d have to be genius. For he will have to feed a family on a policeman’s salary,” it ends.
At least three times during the Little Rock Police Department memorial ceremony, Buckner told recruits in training that he thanked them for answering the call to service.
He’s said before that it’s harder than ever to recruit people to be police officers. “Who would want to go into such a dangerous field when there are negative comments about the profession on the news every night and the community is angry at police?” he has asked.
Public safety “requires the Police Department and the community working together to make sure we never add another name to this memorial,” Buckner said Friday.
Many speakers at Friday’s ceremonies talked about the deep sense of family among police departments, and how fellow officers take care of the surviving family members that fallen officers leave behind.
Someone from Joseph Tucker Fisher’s family has attended the Little Rock ceremony every year since his death in 1995. Fisher, a Little Rock detective, was shot and killed while serving a narcotics search warrant at an apartment complex. He had been with the agency for 12 years. He was 34.
Both of his daughters — Brooke Fisher-Harris, 33, and Britta Fisher, 29 — attended Friday’s ceremony with their own daughters, both age 3.
Joseph Tucker Fisher never got to meet his granddaughters, but both are named after him — Charlotte Jo and Jasey Tucker. The girls played with the single-stem roses wrapped in blue ribbon that were given to each family member Friday, and they were excited for officers to take them by the hands and show them the police horses.
Their mothers, who were both young when their father died, tell the children about their grandfather. Charlotte calls him Papa Jo and Jasey calls him Papa Tucker.
Hutchinson said Friday at the state Capitol ceremony, “We cannot be a strong society if we do not have safe streets. It’s our officers who give us that safety.”
Kevin “Bart” Simpson, president of the state Fraternal Order of Police, said it’s a shame that police officers are under attack. But, he said, they know what they signed up for.
“The life of a police officer is not an easy path for anyone, and when the unexplainable occurs it’s even harder on the survivors who think, ‘Why? Why did this happen?’ We know we might not come home. … This is what we took on and pledged an oath to do,” he said.
Simpson told the family members at the state Capitol to look around at the support available to them.
“We will never forget your loved ones, and we will never forget you,” he said.