GARY, WV (WOAY) – The small town of Gary is erecting a memorial to honor fallen police officers.
Police Chief S.P. McKinney says that it’s been a project he’s been wanting to create the memorial for a while, and after pitching it to the city council, they were all for it.
“I told them I wanted to do a permanent memorial in McDowell County for the slain police officers as part of the national police memorial week and unanimously they were for it,“ McKinney said.
The memorial will feature three different flags, a triangular base and a color scheme to match police uniforms. The memorial comes at an important time for police officers, as this year has proven to be much more difficult for them in general due to the pandemic.
“We’ve lost more police officers this year to the coronavirus then we’ve lost to violence.”
McKinney says he specifically wanted the memorial to go up during National Police Week, and he wants all police officers across the county to be honored during this time.
“It’s for all police officers nationwide that have lost their lives . And we want to just put this up to support the families and support the memories of the loved ones, the children, the grandchildren that know somebody somewhere put something up to honor their loved one”
The memorial has been slowly built over the past couple of weeks by a small team of workers from the city of Gary Public Works and will be ready to be unveiled this weekend.
The memorial is located outside Gary City Hall and will be unveiled this Saturday, May 16 at 12 P.M.
