Seniors and Lawmen Together to hold memorial service for fallen officers

In years past, when the committee of Seniors and Lawmen Together hosted their annual law enforcement memorial service, the ceremony consisted of members kneeling by the memorial to pay their silent respects to officers killed in the line of duty.

The service has grown considerably since then, and more than 200 officers, citizens and family members of fallen officers attended last year's ceremony, Capt. Roger Fields said.

"Last year, I made a concerted effort to try to get all of the family members to attend," Fields said.

On Friday, the committee will host the 11th annual memorial service at 10 a.m. at the Conservation Campus Center Auditorium in Cape County Park North to honor 19 officers in Southeast Missouri who made the ultimate sacrifice for their work in law enforcement.

The ceremony will be open to the public, and also commemorates Peace Officers Memorial Day on Thursday.

"We hope to reach the 200 mark again," Fields said.

All of the officers mentioned during the ceremony are either from Southeast Missouri or were working in the region when they were killed, Fields said.

Charles "Paul" Corbin, of Zalma, Mo., the fourth highway patrol officer killed in Missouri, will be added to the ceremony for the first time this year. Corbin died in 1943.

Corbin is included among eight highway patrol officers who will be honored at the event. Jimmy Carr, of the Scott County Sheriff's Department, who was killed in January 1875, will be commemorated as well.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department has lost a total of five officers, including its former police chief Nathaniel "Jeff" Hutson. Hutson was shot to death by Willie Willeford, a fugitive, on Oct. 7, 1922, when he entered Willeford's residence to arrest him.

Hutson had served as both chief and later Cape Girardeau County sheriff before retiring from that office and returning to the police department as chief in 1921.

Albert Demortiers, a patrolman, was shot twice, gunned down at the corner of Broadway and Middle Street while walking his beat in October 1917. Then in 1921, the body of Willis A. Martin, a night officer, was found in the rear of a shoe store on Good Hope Street, slain with two gunshot wounds. No one was ever convicted of the crime, and one theory is that Martin interrupted a robbery in progress at the business.

Then in 1961, two Cape Girardeau officers Donald Crittendon, and reserve officer Herbert Goss, lost their lives during a shootout that occurred during an attempted robbery at the Kroger grocery store in the Town Plaza Shopping Center. Crittendon was only an hour and a half away from his final day as a law enforcement officer.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245

Does this affect you?

Plan to attend?

Have a comment?

Log on to semissourian.com/today