Alamosa Police Officer Mollee Heeney stood with her brothers and sisters in arms, the community, and her mom as District Attorney Anne Kelly looked at her and told her how proud she was of Heeney. On Wednesday evening, the community joined at the firehouse, remembered fallen officers, and shared a meal and thanks with those who still wear the badge.
The San Luis Valley has held this memorial for the past 18 years. May 15 is known as National Peace Officers Memorial Day. President John F. Kennedy declared National Peace Officers Memorial week in 1962.
“I hope that you never forget how important your job is and how amazing you are as individuals who put on the uniform every day to protect us,” Kelly said.
Law enforcement from every corner of the Valley gathered to hold a ceremony that is both somber and joyful.
This time it was different. Earlier in the day, just a few hours before the gathering, a jury of 12 found Daniel Brandt Jr. guilty of attempted first degree murder of both Heeney and Ricardo Rangel. Heeney responded to a call of a fight in the 1200 Block of Denver Avenue in October 2022. When she arrived, she saw Rangel being fired upon by a juvenile, who was tried as an adult. Then she, too, was fired upon. Heeney and Rangel left that neighborhood alive that day, but forever changed.
The last time a police officer was killed in the line of duty in the San Luis Valley was in 1973. Since then, however, police officers have passed from old age or suicide and their loss weighs heavy on the shoulders of many of the Valley’s cops.
Alamosa County Sheriff Robert Jackson has been a police officer in the San Luis Valley for four decades and knew personally many of the names he read off during the evening.
The ceremony is not only held for the police officers, but their family and friends, too. Alamosa Mayor Ty Coleman, whose mother was a narcotics officer in Houston, told the group “I’m sure that today there’s several of you here who are family members to our law enforcement officers who feel some of the same type of anxiety that I felt as a kid. Now, being a cop kid … it had its benefits, too.”
Coleman told the story of how he was standing at a bus stop and a group of school bullies came “to beat me up.” But one of them saw who he was and told the others, “‘Hey, we better leave that kid alone cause his mom’s a cop,’ and whoosh, they disappeared. My mom’s shield protected me, even though she wasn’t there.”
Sheriff Jackson took a few minutes and read a long list of names of the Valley’s fallen officers. “We have not talked about all the police officers who have affected us who didn’t die in the line of duty. But they probably affected most of us in some way. It goes way back. Thankfully, some of them just died of old age. Some of them committed suicide. I thought it would be cool that we brought those names up so they stay in our memory.”
Alamosa Police Department
Chief Nyle Langston
City Marshal Charles Emerson
City Marshal Joseph R. Simons
Sgt. James Garland Parker
Ofc. Solomon Sam Romero
Ofc. Andrew Lopez
Ofc. Mike Valesquez
Ofc. John Peasley
Alamosa County Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff James P. Drury
Dep. Dusty Claunch
Dep. William “Bill” Lucero
Dep. Ben Phillips
Dep. Ron Goodman
Adams State Police Department
Ofc. Bob Lujan
Ofc. Lee Rourke
Ofc. Alycia Riggs
Center Police Department
Ofc. Oliver P. Cain
Ofc. Steve Martinez
Ofc. Don Wells
Conejos County Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff Howard Galvez
Dep. Raymundo Martinez
Dep. Eduardo Dominguez
Dep. Robert Gurules
Costilla County Sheriff’s Office
Sheriff Jose Adolfo Rodriguez
Sheriff Amos medina
Sheriff Gilberto Martinez
Dep. Rodulfo Roberto Sanchez
Dep. Angelo lobato
Del Norte Police Department
Chief Barney Black
Manassa Police Department
Ofc. Dale Ruff
Monte Vista Police Department
Assistant Chief Guy Everett O’neil
Night Marshal Clyde Lewis McDonald
Mineral County Sheriff’s Office
Dep. Phil Leggitt
Rio Grande County Sheriff’s Office
Undersheriff Zack Allen
Saguache County Sheriff’s Office
Dep. James McClosky
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Federal Agent David Mize
Colorado Department of Corrections Parole
Rick Black