Planned Las Vegas park named after slain police officer
Emotional Las Vegas leaders on Wednesday named a planned park in honor of a slain Metro police officer.
The City Council's unanimous vote to christen Officer Igor Soldo Memorial Park came a little more than a year after the 31-year-old was gunned down along with his partner, Alyn Beck, 41, while eating lunch at CiCi's Pizza, 309 N. Nellis Blvd.
Their killers — anti-government, anti-police zealots Jerad and Amanda Miller — were found dead after a shootout with police at a nearby Wal-Mart.
City Councilman Steve Ross, who sponsored the renaming, teared up ahead of Wednesday's vote.
In June, Ross brought forward a similar, item to name a park in Beck's honor. It won unanimous approval.
Northwest Area Command Capt. Richard Fletcher, who headed Beck and Soldo's area command last year, applauded the move on Metro's behalf.
"Here we stand again, doing the right thing for the right person at the right time," Fletcher told city leaders. "We wholeheartedly support this endeavor."
Soldo's widow, Andrea, who moved to Oklahoma roughly one year after the shooting, delivered a brief statement via a video broadcast in the City Council chambers.
"The city wrapped its loving arms around my son Logan and I," she said. "We felt every single prayer and thought this city sent our way.
"It seems cliche, but it really did make this unimaginable process more bearable."
Soldo Memorial Park will be near Lone Mountain and Shaumber roads in the as-yet-unbuilt northwest valley neighborhood of Skye Canyon, roughly 7 miles southwest of Alyn Beck Memorial Park, at Fort Apache and Iron Mountain roads.
A city spokesman said neither park had been designed yet and it was too early to tell if they would include memorials to the officers.
He said both officers are already honored at Police Memorial Park, on Metro Academy Way just north of Cheyenne Avenue. That park features a fallen officer tree grove, memorial wall and memorial statue.
Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven.
