Eagle soars for fallen officers
With his 28-foot-tall creation bearing a steel eagle with a 9-foot wingspan perched behind him, artist Adolfo R. Gonzalez’s face lit up when he talked about the memorial to fallen Southern Nevada police officers Wednesday.
"I am a guy that can draw, paint and build, but to do something so grand makes me so proud," he said of the statue he was selected to create.
The Las Vegas man rode in the lead patrol car of a motorcade that escorted the statue from the Strip through the city to its final resting place at the Southern Nevada Law Enforcement Memorial in the northwest valley.
"I tell people what I can’t say (through speech). I talk through my art," said Gonzalez, who has a speech impediment. "It’s a grand day."
From the start of the project six years ago to Wednesday’s motorcade to the park, local law enforcement officials have tried to make the whole process grand.
After members of a committee decided what they wanted the statue to represent, it took years to gather the approximately $400,000 in private donations necessary to bring the statue from concept to concrete.
The committee gathered proposals from 13 artists.
Gonzalez’s sketch, which featured three towers, torches and an eagle bearing an American flag and a police shield, best fit the committee’s vision.
The towers and torches represent the three branches of law enforcement — local, state and federal, said Las Vegas police Detective Tina Ellison.
Twenty-two bolts inside the structure bear the initials of the fallen officers and the dates that each died.
Union Pacific Railroad watchman Joe Mulholland, who died in October 1905, was the first law enforcement officer on record to lose his life serving in Southern Nevada.
The most recent fallen officer was Metropolitan Police Department Sgt. Henry Prendes, who was gunned down during a domestic violence call in February 2006.
"We wanted something upbeat and meaningful," Ellison said.
An 80-vehicle police motorcade escorted the flatbed truck carrying the structure through Las Vegas.
Taking part in the procession were a multi-agency honor guard and more than 100 officers from the Las Vegas and Henderson police departments, the Nevada Highway Patrol and other agencies.
Ellison said the motorcade was a chance for people to see the statue and feel what it stands for.
"In any part of our job, in any day, we could lose our lives in the line of duty," she said. "That’s a real thing."
Gonzalez said he was surprised by all the people who stood at the curbs to watch the bikes, motorcycles and patrol cars drive by.
He waved to them.
"I felt like the president," the artist said.
The statue will be dedicated at 7 p.m. on May 21 at Police Memorial Park, 3250 Metro Academy Way.
The formal dedication ceremony and candlelight vigil will be open to the public.
Contact reporter Maggie Lillis at mlillis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.