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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Remembering our fallen heroes

Police officers, families pay respects

By: Melissa Martin

Posted: 09/27/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

JOE.BRYKSA@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Police and other peace officers gather on the south lawn of the Manitoba legislature Sunday to remember fallen comrades.

THE wind snapped the Canadian flags to attention, the hats of the fallen sat silently in a row and the bagpipe band keened out the melody to Amazing Grace.

And near the south steps of the Manitoba legislature, as the moment of silence fell over the crowd, Rose Onofrey sat with a friend and remembered another time she'd heard the old gospel song: the day in the early 1970s when her son, Dennis Onofrey, officially became an RCMP officer.

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Dennis Onofrey (HANDOUT)

"When he got his badge, they were playing that song," Onofrey recalled. "The guy who gave the badge to him said... 'Now, these fellows would die for you.' I thought, 'Now they couldn't let anything happen to Dennis.' And it did."

Four years after earning his badge, Dennis Onofrey was a constable at the Virden RCMP detachment. His second child was due in only a month, but Onofrey never got to meet his daughter. On Jan. 23, 1978, he was slain by a shotgun blast while investigating a report of a stolen truck at a Virden motel.

Under Sunday morning's sunny, windy skies, he and 45 other Manitoba officers who have died in the line of duty were remembered again.

About 70 people joined dozens of police and other peace officers on the legislative grounds for the service, which is held every year as part of the Police and Peace Officers' National Memorial Day.

After opening the memorial with short speeches and a performance from the Winnipeg Police Pipe Band, representatives from forces such as the RCMP, Manitoba Conservation, Manitoba Corrections and regional police forces read the names of the 46 officers that have died in the line of duty since the province's inception.

"They are true heroes... I'm sure each of them would have said, 'I was just doing my job,' " Brandon police Chief Keith Atkinson told the gathered crowd. "We can never repay our debt to them, but we must never forget."

The first to die in the line of duty was Manitoba Provincial Police officer Richard Power, who drowned in 1880 while ferrying a prisoner to trial. The most recent was RCMP Const. Dennis Strongquill, who was gunned down in Russell in 2001.

Across Canada, other cities held similar vigils. In Ottawa, about 5,000 members of Canada's tight policing family marched up to Parliament Hill, standing behind the grieving relatives of seven Canadian officers who had died in the line of duty over the past year. Two of the officers, RCMP Chief Supt. Douglas Coates and Sgt. Mark Gallagher, died during the earthquake in Haiti last January. Two others were slain: Ontario Provincial Police Const. Vu Pham was shot after he stopped a pickup truck on a rural road in southwestern Ontario and Ottawa police officer Eric Czapnik was stabbed as he sat in the parking lot of an Ottawa hospital, writing a police report.

The names of the seven who died over the past year were etched into glass panels near a memorial pavilion, which now includes the names of 771 officers.

At the memorial at the Manitoba legislature, provincial Justice Minister Andrew Swan called for "tougher measures to ensure our police officers are not assaulted," and noted a monument to the fallen is in the works for Winnipeg.

Escorted by a red-suited RCMP officer, Rose Onofrey stopped by the plaque bearing her son's name and remembered the man who never came home from work all those years ago. "I never miss this," Onofrey said.

"It brings back memories. While I was sitting there, I was thinking... I feel he's right beside me."

-- With files from The Canadian Press

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 27, 2010 A3

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