REMEMBERING HEROES: Making peace with loss

Officers honored on Law Enforcement Memorial Day

A small crowd gathered beneath overcast skies May 7 at northwest Las Vegas' Police Memorial Park to honor local law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

Gov. Kenny Guinn joined Clark County Sheriff Bill Young, officers from valley police departments, the Nevada Highway Patrol and the local FBI, and family and friends of fallen officers to commemorate Southern Nevada's Law Enforcement Memorial Day.

Young called it a chance for the community to remember its lost heroes, for officers to honor their own.

"As months and years pass following the death of an officer, their memory may begin to fade," Young said. "Today brings back that memory."

A multi-agency color guard posted the American flag at half-staff. Family members of fallen officers laid flowers at the memorial. A bugler played "Taps," and a helicopter air unit from the Las Vegas police flew overhead. The rifle team fired a particularly appropriate 21-gun salute -- 21 Southern Nevada officers have died in the line of duty -- and Las Vegas Undersheriff Doug Gillespie read the names of fallen officers.

One of those officers was Lesa Peterson's husband, Russell Peterson, a Las Vegas police search and rescue team member who was killed in a 1998 Mount Charleston ice-climbing accident.

Though it has been six years since her husband's death, Peterson still had to fight back tears while reading the poem "Police Week" during the ceremony.

"It's emotional," she said. "It gets to me."

"For the family," Young said, "that memory never fades. We recognize those in our profession who every day, every time they put on a badge and gun É risk their lives so the rest of us can have a safe community."

Also among the names read at the memorial were those of Las Vegas motorcycle cop Marc Kahre and North Las Vegas officer Raul Elizondo, just two of several fallen valley officers who have had schools named in their honor.

Kahre died in a 1988 shoot-out with a man attempting to flee after threatening a citizen with a gun. The officer was honored in another May 7 ceremony at his namesake elementary school at 7887 W. Gowan Road.

Elizondo was only 27 years old when he was killed in the line of duty in 1995. In March, students at Elizondo Elementary in North Las Vegas honored him at their annual Elizondo Day celebration.

Young said he hoped that instead of remembering how these officers died, people would remember how they lived their lives and served their communities.

"Those of us who wear a uniform do it with pride and with the knowledge that it may take the ultimate sacrifice," he said.

Peterson said Law Enforcement Memorial Day is an important tradition for families of slain officers.

"As family members, we know our loved one is not forgotten," she said. "It's nice to know that I am not alone, that it's not just family members but the entire law enforcement community that remembers."

Lisa Flahive, a peer counselor for the Metropolitan Police Department, agreed. Flahive's brother, also a cop, was killed in the line of duty in Michigan 10 years ago. She now serves as president of Nevada Concerns of Police Survivors, a nonprofit grief support organization for law enforcement families who have lost a loved one.

"It is important to remember the sacrifice these officers made," Flahive said. "It could have easily been one of us."


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