Published: May 16, 2008 12:30 am            

LAW ENFORCEMENT: Service honors fallen officers

LEWISTON — With the crack of a rifle salute and the mournful trumpeting of “Taps,” members of Niagara County law enforcement and the community honored those who have fallen in the thin blue line of duty.

The 11th annual Niagara County Interfaith Police Memorial Service was held Thursday night at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Ridge Street in Lewiston.

Niagara Interfaith Chaplaincy President Richard James told the gathering the first year a service was held, in 1998, six law enforcement officers from New York, including Buffalo Police Officer Robert McLellan, lost their lives in the line of duty.

“We promised the souls of those brave officers they would never be forgotten,” James said.

The service served as an opportunity to remember a previously unknown fallen officer from the Western New York area. Recent research by Lockport Police Officer Paul Beakman led to the discovery of the death on duty of Detective Daniel McCrea in June 1908.

McCrea, 22 at the time of his death, had spent just three months on the job with the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Police.

“He (McCrea) was killed by five suspicious characters he had shagged out the (Buffalo Railroad) yard a short time before,” Beakman said. “They snuck back in and they ambushed him. At less than 7 feet away, on top of a rail car, he was shot in the face.”

McCrea died four days later, with his family by his side.

Beakman and others said most of the records of McCrea’s slaying have been lost in the railroad mergers of the past 100 years. However, local law enforcement officers will press to have McCrea’s name added to the National Police Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Those in attendance were reminded that there were 187 in-the-line-of-duty law enforcement deaths in 2007 nationwide. Already in 2008, 37 officers have lost their lives.

“Each and every time I attend a service like this, I am awestruck,” said Chaplain Ben Marino of the Town of Niagara Police Department.

        

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