Press Release

National Police Week – A Time to Honor Law Enforcement

Camdenton, MO, February 8, 2006 - Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc. (COPS), a national non-profit headquartered in Camdenton, reminds everyone that May 14-20 is National Police Week. With the signing of Public Law 87-726 in October 1962, May 15 of each year is National Peace Officers' Memorial Day and the calendar week containing May 15 is National Police Week.

National activities take place in Washington, DC. COPS will host the National Police Survivors' Conference on May 13 and 14 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Alexandria, VA. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial will host a candlelight vigil on May 13 at the Memorial in Judiciary Square. The Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of Police and its Auxiliary will host the Peace Officers' Memorial Service on the grounds of the US Capitol on May 15.

The 153* officers who made the supreme sacrifice in 2005 will be honored at these events and their surviving families will be in attendance. Those survivors who attend COPS’ National Police Survivors’ Conference will find strength and healing from other survivors as well as mental health professionals familiar with the traumatic grief that line-of-duty death inflicts on the surviving family.

“I thought I was alone in my grief until I attended my first National Police Survivors’ Conference,” states COPS National President Shirley Gibson. “This was the first safe haven I found after my son was killed. No one was uncomfortable with my tears, no one was uncomfortable if I laughed. I finally began to see a ray of hope for the future.”

COPS, organized in 1984, provides resources to help the surviving families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty begin rebuilding their shattered lives. COPS also promotes officer safety and public awareness of the dangers of the law enforcement profession and the sacrifices made by law enforcement families.  COPS' membership consists of nearly 15,000 surviving households nationwide.

For more information about Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc., or to help support COPS’ programs, contact COPS at (573) 346-4911, or e-mail cops@nationalcops.org.  Visit the COPS website at www.nationalcops.org.

*Actual numbers will vary based on organizations’ differing criteria.