DALLAS -- As the City gets ready to mark the one year anniversary, there will be more and more permanent reminders and memorials of the downtown Dallas ambush that took place on July 7, 2016.
One of them will now serve as a stopping point for runners and passers-by along the Trinity Strand Trail.
The recently completed “Dallas Circle of Heroes” is six bronze plaques mounted into stones forming a circle around a flag pole. One plaque tells the story of July 7 while each of the other five remember the officers killed, their service, and their personal stories.
A dedication ceremony was held at 9 a.m. Thursday with families of the five officers in attendance. Dallas and DART police chiefs spoke as part of the dedication.
"People say it's a job, but it's not. It's a calling, and he went out exactly the way he would have wanted to," said Kristy Zamarripa.
Friday marks one year since Kristy Zamarripa's husband Patrick, a Dallas Police officer who was killed in the line of duty alongside four fellow officers. The memorial -- the "Dallas Circle of Heroes" is for those officers and the families they left behind.
"He lives on through (my daughter). I mean she's a little mini version of Patrick. Every time she smiles our laughs or cries, I can see Patrick in her," Zamarripa said.
The memorial is a private project from the partners at Jim Lake Companies and sits right out front of their building in the Design District. Partner Mike Morgan said the idea to remember the officers started forming the very night of the attack when he couldn't sleep. He wanted to do something to honor not just the five fallen officers, but all police.
“Every day is a day they may not return home,” said Morgan. “We need to show everybody in Dallas and everybody in the nation that we always support our police serving us each and every day.”
The plaques for the individual officers tell more about them than just their police service. Michael Krol’s plaque describes him as a “gentle giant” while Lorne Ahrens’ remembers his love of dogs and his time playing semi-pro football.
“We wanted to show the side of the police officer outside of the uniform and what kind of life he led so we know more about them," Morgan said. "Because those guys did the things in life that you and I should be trying to do -- and that is to serve our people.”
