About 400 people waved American flags and cheered during a rally for police Saturday, a week after protesters dumped red paint on a memorial honoring Denver’s fallen officers and desecrated a flag by yanking it to the ground.
Denver Officer Mike Morelock and other officers replaced the desecrated flag in a short ceremony Saturday on the plaza outside police headquarters, 331 Cherokee St.
“That flag represents everything this country means to me,” said Morelock, a former Marine sergeant who had friends who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The desecration of the flag struck right to the soul.”
Two people have been arrested for pouring paint on the stone monument while protesting four incidents in seven months in which police fired at moving vehicles, killing two suspects.
“I’ve never been so proud to be a cop in my life than today,” Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association, said in a brief speech.
Police officers took turns reading each of the 59 names engraved on the memorial, from officer John C. Phillips, shot to death by a burglar July 7, 1889, to Celena Hollis, fatally shot in City Park on June 24, 2012.
Moments later, tears streamed down the face of Susan Moran as she thanked Rogers for leading the rally.
Rogers told her that on Feb. 25, 1995 — the day her first husband, Shawn J. Leinen, was gunned down by a juvenile — Leinen had made Rogers a burrito in a simple gesture of kindness.
Rogers, an officer with a thick handlebar mustache, then hugged the police widow.
“Only the good die young,” Moran told him.
Moran said her second husband, also a Denver police officer, “gently” told her about the vandalism shortly after it happened.
“It hurt,” she said. “It was really hard to see. This coming Wednesday will be 20 years since Shawn was killed.”
Raymond Gone, 36, a high school dropout who fired five bullets at Leinen, is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. Moran gave birth to Leinen’s son after his death.
“It’s disgusting. It was an intentional dishonorable act. They wanted to rub our face into it,” Capt. Joseph Padilla said of the Feb. 14 vandalism. “The memorial honors the memory of people who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I knew several of them. I was on some of the scenes when some of these officers lost their lives, and I can’t forget them.”
The fallen officers include motorcycle Officer Dennis Licata, who was struck and killed by a vehicle while he rode to the scene of an accident Sept. 6, 2000. Padilla had sat in on Licata’s interview when he applied for a police job, and Padilla was one of the first responders to the accident that killed Licata.
“I went back to New York to his burial,” Padilla said.
Gail Martinez said she attended the rally to support Denver officers — among them her brother.
“Criminals have gotten away with so much,” Martinez said. “The police are trying to protect us, and they can’t do it because their hands are tied. They are faced with danger. I think what happened was a disgrace.”
Thirty-three-year-old construction contractor Armon Moinzad said he needed to attend the rally to show his support.
“It’s important to me because I know when I dial 911, they’ll be there for me,” he said.
A fresh layer of snow coated scores of bouquets of fresh flowers left at the memorial over the past week.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, denverpost.com/coldcases or twitter.com/kirkmitchell
