Bonding ‘over the losses’: Southern Nevada police officers remembered at service — PHOTOS

For Anne Beitel, the pain of losing her police officer son nearly 16 years ago doesn’t go away.

But it does get a little easier as the years go on, she said.

“It’s like a scab,” Beitel said. “It’s always there, but I also know that he wouldn’t want us to be sad all the time. He’d want us to live our lives.”

Beitel’s son, Milburn Beitel III, died Oct. 8, 2009, a day after his Metropolitan Police Department patrol car overturned after he swerved to miss another vehicle. He was 30 at the time of his death.

On Thursday evening, Anne and her husband, Milburn Beitel II, were two out of several hundred who gathered at Police Memorial Park, near West Cheyenne Avenue and North Hualapai Way in west Las Vegas, to honor police officers from Southern Nevada who have died in the line of duty — a list that goes back 120 years.

Since their son died, the Beitels have not missed the annual event. While they used to live in Las Vegas, the Beitels now make their home in Kerrville, Texas, a town near San Antonio.

“We’ve gotten to know a lot of the other families,” Anne said. “We’ve kind of bonded over the losses that we’ve all suffered. The officers from (Milburn’s) squad have gotten to be like our own kids over the years. Las Vegas, as a city, supports their police department, which is something that we appreciate.”

As the Beitels sat on a bench at the sprawling park — which is currently being renovated — a stone marker with a plaque was positioned a few feet away.

Like many others that dot the landscape of the park, it listed Beitel’s title with Metro and the date he died. A Silverado High School graduate, Beitel served as a Marine after high school before entering the police academy.

“You worry when your child is a police officer,” Beitel’s father said. “You worry every night, but you don’t think something like that is going to happen. I know he would want people to support their police department and that’s what we want.”

During the twilight ceremony, the names of all Southern Nevada officers to die in the line of duty since 1905 were read. There was also a 21-gun salute for the fallen.

During his remarks, Sheriff Kevin McMahill said it’s up to “everyone” to remember the officers and “what they stood for.”

At the forefront, he said, that meant remembering them for their “integrity and excellence.”

Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley also spoke at the event, noting that police officers “do what they do without concern for their own safety.”

“It’s overwhelming to me that we have people in this community that willingly do this each and every day,” Berkley said.

A few minutes before the ceremony began, Anne Beitel looked around the park that she and her husband visit every year.

“It’s a beautiful place,” she said. “I think Las Vegas is a special place to be a police officer. Our son, he loved being a police officer and I know he was good at it and treated people with respect.”