Annual ceremony set to honor Merced County peace officers who died in the line of duty

A solemn ceremony dedicated to local members of law enforcement who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty is scheduled to take place outside the Merced County administration building next week.

The Merced County Peace Officers Memorial Ceremony is scheduled for 9 a.m., May 18 at the stone monument with the engraved names of those officers from local law enforcement agencies.

“No local officers’ names will be added (to the wall), since we didn’t (recently) lose any officers in Merced County, luckily,” said Daryl Allen, public information officer for the Merced County Sheriff’s Office.

The 17th annual ceremony will also honor the 46 total law enforcement officers across the state of California who died last year, either in the line of duty or because of COVID-19, Allen said.

Those officers’ names will be read during the ceremony and a gun volley will be performed in their honor.

The featured speaker this year will be Assemblymember Adam Gray, according to Allen.

In previous years, chiefs of police of Merced County’s cities and UC Merced have attended and spoken at the ceremony.

Past speakers have included former Merced Police Chief Chris Goodwin and Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke.

According to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office, 15 wardens, police, deputies and correctional officers in Merced County have died in the line of duty since the first law enforcement death in the county in 1914.

The first Merced County-area officer to die was Game Warden George Rodolph when a poacher shot him in the back in 1914. The most recent name added to the wall was Correctional Officer Jose V. Rivera, who was murdered by inmates at USP Atwater in 2008.

The memorial is located at 2222 M Street in Merced. For more information, contact Daryl Allen at daryl.allen@countyofmerced.com.

This story was originally published May 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM.