IHIA Symposium Lays Wreath at Memorial

Attendees of the 2015 International Homicide Investigators Association symposium in Washington, DC, gathered at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial on the evening of Tuesday, August 18, to lay a wreath in honor of the more than 20,000 law enforcement officers whose names are on the Memorial walls.

Memorial Fund Chairman and CEO Craig Floyd welcomed the guests and spoke of the annual candlelight vigil ceremony held at the Memorial during National Police Week in May, a tradition since the Memorial was dedicated in 1991. He also shared a story about the special guest and keynote speaker for the second candlelight vigil in 1992, radio host Paul Harvey.

“I picked him up that day at the airport and I brought him to the Memorial,” Floyd started, “and I walked along the west wall behind me until I got to panel 60W, Line 18. And as we were walking, he became impatient, and he said, ‘Craig, where is his name?’ His father, Harry Aurandt, had been shot and killed in December of 1921, when Paul Harvey was three years old. Paul Harvey’s father’s name is proudly inscribed on these Memorial walls, along with more than 20,000 others.

“And when I finally pointed to his name on that wall, Paul Harvey, a world-renowned gentleman who, at that time, was in his seventies, got down on his knees. He touched his father’s name and began sobbing. It touched him to see his nation had not forgotten his father after all these years, that his story would continue to be told at these Memorial grounds.”

For more information about the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, please visit www.nleomf.org. For more information about the National Law Enforcement Museum, please visit www.nleomf.org/museum.