Tupelo, Booneville to host memorials for fallen police officers next week
TUPELO — At least two northeast Mississippi communities will host ceremonies next week as part of National Law Enforcement Memorial Week.
The Northeast Mississippi Law Enforcement Memorial Service, hosted by Wives of Warriors and C.O.P.S. (Concerns of Police Survivors), will begin at 6 p.m. Monday outside the theater at the Elvis Presley Birthplace in Tupelo.
The memorial service was started more than a quarter-century ago by John Harmon after his son, Casey Harmon, was shot and killed while working as a jailer at the Lee County Juvenile Detention Center in March 1998.
Pontotoc Deputy Police Chief Bob Poe will speak at the event, which will include the playing of Taps, the reading of the names of the area’s officers who have been killed in the line of duty, and a candlelight vigil.
On Tuesday, the Prentiss County Sheriff’s Office will hold their annual ceremony at the Prentiss County Justice Center at 6 p.m. Ray Hall, a retired Mississippi Highway Patrol troop and current Prentiss County Justice Court Judge, will speak.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy established May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day. The week around that day is National Police Week.
There will be a pair of events in Jackson Tuesday. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety will host their memorial service at 10 a.m. at their 1900 E. Woodrow Wilson Avenue headquarters. The Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police will host their annual fallen officer candlelight vigil at the State Capitol Mall in downtown Jackson the same day at 6:30 p.m.
The national memorial will also be held Tuesday night at 7 p.m. with a candlelight vigil on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. That event, which will be livestreamed on social media by the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Foundation, will include the reading of the names of 395 fallen officers, 295 of which died in 2020.
