2007: Police editorial page, The Charlotte Observer

Ed Williams:

Here's the background. Recently two local police officers were shot and killed in a condominium complex parking lot by a guy who had a minor-league criminal history. Of course, the Observer has been full of stories about it. I remembered a couple of years ago seeing an exhibit during police week with photos of all the police officers in the community who died in the line of duty, with a brief explanation of each killing. I checked with the PD and found that the photos and stories were available on the department's Website.

We downloaded the photos and stories, and quickly put together a page memorializing all those officers with six-line summaries of how they died. Cartoonist Kevin Siers did a related cartoon and we topped off the page with an editorial saying who's joining the police force now as shown by the most recent recruit class. The full-page presentation drew a lot of attention and told readers things few of them knew about the present and past police department.

Anyone inspired by this would be wise to check now with the police department and see if it has such photos and brief histories on hand.

police edit page-1.pdf