Annual event remembers fallen officers

For Mahnomen County Sheriff Douglas Krier, law enforcement officers are just as much family members as they are colleagues.

He found that out after losing Dep. Christopher Dewey, who was 26 when he was shot and severely injured while responding to a call in February 2009.

“I heard the four words that I never thought I would hear as a law enforcement officer and that was, ‘Shots fired officer down,’” Krier said. “My family came together.”

Krier was speaking during the fourth annual Northern Valley Police Week Memorial Service Tuesday afternoon at the Grand Forks County building. Local, state, federal law enforcement, as well as the US Air Force and Royal Canadian Mounted Police participated in the event honoring those who have died in the line of duty.

The annual service is part of a week of national remembrance designated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Krier recalled how, after phone calls to the Becker County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota State Patrol, 150 officers from 18 different agencies in two states came to help within three hours.

Officers were involved in a nine-hour standoff with the suspect in sub-zero temperatures, Krier said. Once the suspect was taken into custody, Krier visited Dewey in the hospital in Fargo, where, to his surprise, numerous officers were already there.

“I didn’t realize how far my family had extended,” Krier said.

Dewey died in August 2010, about a year and a half after he was shot.

“He will be missed as will everyone else,” Krier said.