April 2, 2011

The Law Enforcement Memorial of Sedgwick County is finally a reality after nearly a decade of planning by committee members and donations from the community.

The Law Memorial Committee has been working on developing a permanent memorial to honor police officer and sheriff's deputies who died in the line of duty since 2002. Mary Galvin, the wife of fallen Wichita Police Officer Lt. Jack Galvin helped spearhead the idea. She met with former Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed and Wichita Police Dept. Chief Norman Williams to discuss the need for a memorial in the area.

The memorial was built using private donations and sits in front of City Hall at 455 North Main in Wichita.

Twenty-nine plaques with the names of police officers and sheriff's deputies killed in the line of duty in Sedgwick County line the walls of the memorial. Twenty-nine empty bronze boots sit below those plaques. Mary Galvin said some of those boots are the actual boots the officers were wearing when they died.

Deputy Carlos King of the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office was the first officer who was killed in the line of duty back in 1871. Deputy Brian Etheridge is the most recent officer to lose his life. He was killed in the line of duty back in 2009.