Once again, I am amazed at how this story was passed over and/or ignored by the mainstream media. A young Seattle police officer was shot and killed while his rookie trainee was wounded in a drive-by shooting in a quiet neighborhood. In the days and months ahead, people in the vicinity decided to gather together and form something like a support group. During that time, they decided to build a monument in memory of the police officer.
I guess my point on this is simple: These people didn't have to rely on 'government' to make this choice. Yes, there probably was local ordinances they had to adhere to regarding the specifications of the monument, but the point is, no government money was used. Small businesses donated materials and their time, and less than $10,000 was donated (20 percent came from neighbors) by the Seattle police and firefighters. It was truly a grass-roots idea with the blessing of the widow of the fallen officer. Isn't that amazing?
My thoughts and prayers are with the family of the fallen officer, his trainee, and the people of the neighborhood where this took place. God bless them!
Neighborhood project gives a home to memory of slain officer
Inspired by the black mourning bands police wear across their badges when an officer is killed, Brenton's memorial features a police badge, carved from two pieces of Norwegian blue-pearl granite, that sits atop a strip of polished black granite from India. Radiating out from the badge, words chosen by the Brenton family to describe him — like "brave" and "compassionate" — are engraved on slats of flame-finished granite from China.
"I think of the words on the slats as a foundation that support the shield. Those words kind of made him the police officer he was," said Robert Cipollone, an interior designer who lives down the street from where Brenton died and who helped spearhead the memorial project.
For the neighborhood, coming together to organize a memorial for Brenton was a way to channel grief and helplessness into something positive, said Cipollone, one of four members of the neighborhood's memorial committee.
Early on, Ferguson Construction offered to foot the entire $25,000 bill for the memorial, but neighbors turned the offer down. They wanted the memorial to be a grass-roots-community effort in which "anybody who wanted to be part of this could be," Cipollone said.
Neighborhood businesses joined the effort, and Quiring Monuments, a Seattle company, donated 1,200 pounds of granite and the labor to install the monument. Seattle police and firefighters donated $8,200, but roughly 20 percent of the money came from neighbors living within six blocks of the shooting scene, Cipollone said.
Soon after the shooting, Cipollone and his partner, Bob Peyton, took fliers door to door, inviting neighbors — many of whom they'd never met — into their home. Two weeks after Brenton's slaying, about 35 people crowded into their living room. A week later, another 30 came to talk through their shock and shaken sense of security.
Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com
