Ceremony Held For Fallen Tarrant County Law Enforcement Officers
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - An annual ceremony to remember law enforcement officers who died on the job in Tarrant County was held in Fort Worth today.
The ceremony, downtown at the 1895 Courthouse, honored the 16 Tarrant County officers who have lost their lives. Family members, county officials and deputies were all on hand for the solemn Tarrant County Law Enforcement Memorial tribute.
The names of each officer who was killed in the line of duty was read aloud -- from Sheriff John B. York, who was gunned down in August of 1861, to Deputy Constable Mark Diebold, who died of a heart attack during training in 2017.
Current Tarrant County Sheriff Bill E. Waybourn explained that the idea to establish a permanent memorial for Tarrant County's fallen deputies, constables, and sheriffs first came up in 1994.
The tribute Monday was like a memorial service -- taps was played, there was a 21-gun salute and a riderless horse, with the boots reversed in the stirrups, was guided through.
The ceremony opened with a moment of silence for the victims of the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. Sheriff Waybourn said it is a sobering reminder of the risks members of law enforcement take every day.
"We are still in troubled times," he said. "It's a great reminder for the officers here to continually have their head on a swivel, to be alert, to know their community, and know where the danger is and be ready for it."
The plan is to have a marble star, with the names of the fallen surrounding it, on the West Lawn of the courthouse by next year.