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Annual memorial honors officer sacrifice, resilience during National Police Week
- Jasz Garrett
- 35 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Wreath laying ceremony remembers the fallen lives of ‘service, courage’
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
In April 1979, Juneau Police Department traffic officer Richard Adair and police officer Jim Kennedy were ambushed and killed while responding to a shots-fired call just a few blocks from Evergreen Cemetery.
On Friday afternoon, JPD Deputy Chief Krag Campbell and officer Aron Landry laid a wreath at Adair’s gravesite.
Pastor Greg White of the First Baptist Church opened the police memorial with a prayer. He retired Dec. 31, 2016, after a 34-year law enforcement career, and continues his path as a pastor. He was a full-time cop and spent about a year as a trooper.
“There's a scripture that says, ‘I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service,’” White said in an interview. “And I think this reminds me that for each one of these men and women, when they go out on duty, they’re being a living sacrifice. They’re willing to prefer your life over theirs. That’s a hard thing and particularly when they have a spouse at home, but yet they choose to willingly do that day in and day out, rain or shine.”
The sun shone on Evergreen Cemetery on Friday, where the Department of Corrections, Alaska State Troopers and JPD gathered to honor Adair and all fallen officers. The agencies joined memorials across the country held during National Police Week each year. The Capital City Chapter of the Alaska Peace Officers Association organizes Juneau’s ceremony.
“This week across the country, many will gather at memorial sites like this one to remember and honor those officers killed in the line of duty,” said Kirt Stage-Harvey, the past president of Juneau’s APOA chapter and a JPD officer. “These brave men and women swore an oath and gave their lives so that we may live in freedom and without fear. We are here today to say thank you, and we are honored to know you, to remember you, and to serve in your legacy.”
Fallen JPD officer Karl Reishus, trooper Bruce Heck, and Hoonah Police Department Sgt. Anthony Wallace and officer Matthew Tokuoka were remembered before Adair’s wreath was laid.
Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Branden Forst also honored fallen Southeast Alaska peace officers and other notable Alaska officers killed in the line of duty, with Department of Corrections probation officer Kelly Sweny tolling a memorial bell after each name.
Stage-Harvey said to date, there have been 66 officer and two K-9 line-of-duty deaths in Alaska, including 18 officer deaths in Southeast Alaska.
AST Sgt. Chris Russell, standing near Adair’s wreath, delivered a keynote speech highlighting the resiliency of law enforcement in Southeast Alaska and the sacrifices they make. He called officers the “shields for Southeast storms.”
“It can be challenging to get to the places we need to help people, especially when people are desperately in need of law enforcement,” he said in an interview. “We as state troopers do all we can to get there as quick as we can. Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, equipment might not cooperate and it weighs on us — not just as state troopers, but even personally when you can’t be there to help somebody. That’s the whole meaning of our job, to be there to help the public.”
Russell has been with AST for 23 years, working in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Bethel, Juneau and Anchorage. He has served as a sergeant for 17 years and is currently assigned to the Juneau Post. He also served nearly three years as APOA’s local chapter president.
“It weighs on you after years and decades of working as a police officer, and resiliency is incredibly important in this job to take care of yourself, and take care of your family and make sure they’re OK,” he said.
Russell served on AST’s Critical Incident Response Team, or “peer-to-peer support,” for 10 years. He said resilient officers need departments to look after their well-being and create environments where they can talk about mental health.
“We’ve kept that team now nearly going on two decades, and I think having officers that other officers can go to and feel trust in that they can say what they need to say and get the help when they need to get help is important,” Russell said. “I think when I first started in 2002, there wasn’t peer-to-peer support.”
He also emphasized trust between law enforcement and the community in his speech. Russell said officers want to support the community they work in.
“We all understand that’s our job, and unfortunately, some of us have to give everything to do that, but I don’t think anyone that you saw today would hesitate to do that if they were called into that situation,” Russell told the Independent.
Toward the end of the ceremony, Campbell and Landry laid a second wreath at the gravesite of JPD Chief of Detectives Donald Dull, Juneau’s first line-of-duty death in 1964.
Dull was killed as a result of an accidental firearm discharge while seated in his office. Officers saluted him as Forst played “Taps.”
“On this police memorial day, we are not gathered here simply to decorate these graves,” Stage-Harvey said. “We are here to remember lives of service, courage and sacrifice. These wreaths are symbols of remembrance, honor and appreciation.”
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
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