National Police Remembrance Day: Albany pauses to honour officers and assistants lost in the line of duty

Police personnel who lost their lives in the line of duty were honoured at a National Police Remembrance Day service in Albany on Thursday. The service was held outside the Great Southern Police District Complex, where a section of Stirling Terrace was closed to the public. Representatives from the region’s emergency services turned out to pay their respects, along with City of Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington and former Great Southern Police Superintendent Ian Clarke. National Police Remembrance Day falls on September 29 each year — the Feast of Saint Michael on the Christian calendar. St Michael is recognised as the patron saint of security forces. Menang Noongar elder Vernice Gillies and Sergeant Shelley McQueen welcomed the crowd before Great Southern Acting Superintendent Glenn Spencer gave an opening address. “I have been in the Great Southern district for nearly three years now and have been a police officer for over 30 years,” Acting. Supt Spencer said. “The thing about being a police officer for that long is the longer you have been in this job, unfortunately, the more names you recognise on the honour roll. “Some you know the name, some you have worked with, some you know personally. “Remembrance Day is a day of reflection and when the honour roll is read aloud shortly, you will hear names of women and men, Aboriginal people and white people, who have lost their lives in service to the community. “What I ask you to do as you listen to the names is consider for every person, there were people who loved them. “Each of these people were daughters or sons, mothers or fathers, sisters or brothers, husbands, wives or partners.” The names of more than 80 police officers and assistants were read out from the WA Police honour roll, including several who lost their lives in the Great Southern. During the wreath-laying ceremony, Albany woman Maureen Davies left a tribute to her uncle Constable Kenneth Flatt, who died in a road accident near Dalwallinu in March 1961. The service ended with “touching the rock” — a tradition started in the Pilbara to commemorate four police officers killed in a plane crash near Newman in 2001. The tradition has been adopted in other police districts, including the Great Southern, which suffered its own plane crash tragedy in 1996 when Detective Senior Constable Charles Scott died during a drug surveillance flight near Mt Manypeaks.