åFlags lowered to half-staff May 2 in honor of fallen officers

RBC — In honor of Colorado Law Enforcement Day, Friday May 2, Gov. Bill Ritter ordered all U.S. and Colorado flags to be lowered to half-staff.
The Colorado Law Enforcement Memorial service serves as an occasion to remember and honor fallen Colorado law enforcement officers from the previous year. The memorial service occurs yearly on the first Friday in May.
This year’s May 2 ceremony began at 10 a.m. at the Colorado Law Enforcement Memorial (CLEM) located at the Colorado State Patrol Academy in Golden, Colo. The ceremonies included an honor guard, placement of wreaths, a bagpipe salute, taps, a release of doves as well as a 21-gun salute. The CLEM is located in a small grove of trees on the academy grounds and was erected May 1, 1979, and includes 214 names of fallen officers. In 1999, a “historic” wing was added to the memorial.
Governor Ritter added five more names to the memorial May 2. During 2007, two law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty.
Aurora Police Officer Doug Byrne was killed in March 2007, while he was responding to a medical emergency on East Sixth Avenue when he rolled his patrol vehicle into a median and was ejected. Colorado State Patrol Trooper Zachariah Templeton died in October 2007, while assisting a truck driver in the median of Interstate 76.
Three additional names added to the memorial, based on historical research, were Lamar Night Marshal J. Horace Frisbie, who died in 1906; Routt County Sheriff’s Deputy Charles E. Gibbs, who died in 1929 and Paonia Town Marshal John Armour Stitt, who died in 1952.