The Kansas City Police Department will conduct its annual memorial service Thursday to honor the department’s 119 officers killed in the line of duty.
The observances are to begin at 10 a.m. in front of police headquarters, 1125 Locust St., as part of National Police Week, when departments around the nation honor fallen police officers.
Independence and Sugar Creek police conducted a joint memorial ceremony Wednesday at Independence’s Central Police Building, 223 N. Memorial Drive. A reception was held afterward in the first-floor training room on the north side of the headquarters lobby.
On Friday, Overland Park police will hold a memorial wreath-laying ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Officer Deanna Rose, the department’s first female officer and the first female officer in Kansas killed while on duty. A drunken driver killed her early Jan. 24, 1985.
The noon memorial event will be at the Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead, 13800 Switzer Road.
For the past two years, the Kansas City memorial service had been relocated to the Regional Police Academy during renovations to police headquarters. The renovations allowed the department’s memorial statue to be moved to street level so pedestrians can read the names of the slain officers, police said.
Locust Street between 11th and 12th streets will be closed during the Thursday memorial service.
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