A brief ceremony midday Wednesday at Courthouse Park paid tribute to the eight members of law enforcement who lost their lives in service to Madera County from 1919 to 1973.
Sheriff John Anderson, who is retiring at the end of the year, said he was pleased at the large turn out of residents and law enforcement to remember the fallen, in spite of near record heat. “I am glad we do this (to remember them), but it’s too bad we have to. I have been in this business a long time, several decades and I have worked with (fallen) officers who are on the memorial in Sacramento,” Anderson said.
Madera District California Highway Patrol Lt. Commander Craig Kunzler acknowledged and read aloud the 10 names of on-duty law enforcement officers killed last year in California.
Family members Margot Sciacqua, daughter of Matron Lucille Helm (1914-1959), and Mike Shannon, son of Madera police officer Denny D. Shannon (1920-1954), helped lay a wreath of flowers at the memorial. Helm was the first woman in California to die in the line of duty...