Earlier this week I joined the families and friends of Maine's fallen officers at the Law Enforcement Memorial in Augusta to pay tribute to those who lost their lives protecting and serving communities across our great state.
Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.
Among the names on that stone wall are those of Gil Landry and David Payne. David Payne was an officer with the Lewiston Police Department who was shot and killed in the line of duty in 1988. Barely a year after that, Gil Landry, a State Police detective assigned to my District Attorney's office, was also shot and killed in the line of duty. And because of their deaths, law enforcement people and families around the state raised $125,000 to create this Law Enforcement Memorial, and I have been pleased to speak on this occasion many times in the past.
The 90 individuals whose names are carved on the Law Enforcement Memorial wall in Augusta, were sheriffs and deputies, chiefs of police and patrolmen, park rangers, game wardens, troopers, and detectives. Many of them had served this country in various wars and in branches of the military. They were from Androscoggin County and Auburn, Bath and Baxter State Park, Cumberland and Calais, Oxford and Orono, Paris and Penobscot, Lebanon and Lincoln, Westbrook, Washington, and nearly every town and territory in between. Young and old, veteran or rookie, these men sacrificed their own lives to protect life and property and peace in the State of Maine.
This week, we added the names of two men to the memorial.
Officer Herbert Tarbox of the Falmouth Police Department, a Navy veteran who served in World War II and in the Korean War. Officer Tarbox died in 1959 of a heart attack while administering first aid to a man who had lost consciousness in his vehicle.
And Sergeant Richard Betters of the Portland Police Department, a very popular sergeant who died in 2009 from a heart attack he'd suffered after evacuating people from a burning building. And last year, Sergeant Betters’ colleagues from the Portland Police Department attended the high school graduation of his daughter, Fiona, who has gone on to study criminal justice at the University of Arizona. Well, that's the way Maine's law enforcement community shows up for each other. And that is how we honor these men whose names are carved into the Law Enforcement Memorial. By being the best citizens we can be, the most protective, the most unselfish, the most civil in our common humanity, and the most caring of our human community.
To the men and women in uniform who are today upholding the rule of law, that rule of law which those officers gave their lives for, I say this: please know that I acknowledge the risks that you take when you show up for work every day. I see the sacrifice of your loved ones who are waiting to know if you'll come home safe. I see the spirit of our fallen officers embodied in your commitment to keep our state the safest place in the nation to live, work, and raise a family.
I thank members of law enforcement across the state for their integrity, fairness, compassion, and their sense of duty in the thousand daily acts of service they perform every day on behalf of Maine people.
This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.