KCK board renames local baseball field after sheriff’s deputy Elijah Ming
The Wyandotte County baseball park that sits at Tenth Street and Parallel Parkway in Kansas City, Kansas will now be named in memory of a fallen sheriff’s deputy.
The Unified Government Board of Commissioners unanimously voted on Thursday evening to rename the Heathwood Park baseball field in honor of Elijah Ming, a Wyandotte County Sheriff’s deputy who died in the line of duty last summer. Residents can expect a ribbon cutting to be held next month, said John “J.D.” Rios, a government affairs and policy advisor in the mayor’s office.
Ming was killed on the job in late July when he was dispatched to a service call in the city’s Argentine neighborhood. He was shot while approaching the house he was responding to and died from his injuries in a local hospital. Members of the sheriff’s department and Ming’s family attended the meeting, where the board approved a recommendation from the county’s park board to rename the field. Attendees of the meeting gave Ming’s family a standing ovation after the unanimous vote.
Ming played college baseball, on scholarship, at Wayne State University in Detroit after finishing his associates degree at Fort Scott Community College in Kansas, where he played football. Born and raised in KCK, Ming spent a lot of his youth playing ball with his childhood friends and family members, according to the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas.
“It was at Heathwood Park that Elijah learned the value of teamwork, leadership, and mutual respect,” according to the government proclamation naming the park after Ming.
Ming was among three law enforcement officers to be named Officer of the Year last week at the Metropolitan Chiefs and Sheriffs Association Awards for Valor. He was joined by Hunter Simoncic, a KCK police officer who also died in the line of duty in August, and Jared Timbrook, a Lee’s Summit Police Department Officer who was shot four times while on duty in June and survived.
