Remembering Fallen Heroes

By Divine Design News Service

Dallas Police Sergeant Demetrick Pennie cried in a hallway of Parkland Hospital on that July night when he learned that five Dallas policemen and a DART police officer had been slain during a shameful night of madness on the streets of the city that they had protected, and loved.

Sgt. Pennie, the president of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation, was at home painting floor boards when he received a call that there had been a shooting in downtown Dallas. The caller told him that one of the officers had been killed.

“My body began to shake, and I could not pull myself together,” said Sgt. Pennie, who leads a foundation that comforts the families of officers killed during the line of duty, and awards scholarships to students who pursue academic excellence, and who express an interest in becoming members of law enforcement.

“The holiday season is one of the most difficult times of the year for families of officers who have been killed,” he said. “When they are present it was a joyous time. Now, that they are gone there is a hurtful void. There is something missing. It does not seem fair,” said Sgt. Pennie, a native of inner-city Houston who spent four years in the military before joining the Dallas Police Department in June of 1999.

The Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation was started in 2009 by members of the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Fraternal Order of Police. Five years after it was launched, Sgt. Pennie became the chief organizer and president of the organization.

The foundation provides scholarships to students at the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Law Magnet.  “We ask students to write an essay and to maintain a “B” average,” he said. “It is one of the ways that our fallen heroes are honored. The scholarship is extremely important to students and to members of the police department, and the city government.”

Sgt. Pennie remains in contact with family members of officers who have been slain in Dallas. “I was close to Officer Norman Smith who was killed in 2009. Like the other officers, he was a wonderful person, and had pursued a career in law enforcement because he wanted to help people.”

Growing in Houston, Officer Pennie and his friends did not have pleasant relationships with police officers. “We saw them as our foes,” he said. “But that all changed when I witnessed how they responded to me and my family when my older cousin, Jacqueline, was killed shortly because her wedding day.”

Sgt. Pennie said that his cousin, whom he adored, was killed by an acquaintance of the family when she attempted to stop an argument.  “I was coming home from school when I heard the shot, the killer ran right pass me,  and I saw my cousin laying on the ground, barely holding on to life.”

The experience changed his perception of the police and he decided that he wanted to be like them, assisting families just as they assisted his during the murder of his relative.

“There was nothing that I could do to bring my cousin back to life,” he said, “just as there is nothing that I can do to bring back the lives of my fallen brothers and sisters.  But I can be there for those that they leave behind. I can become a member of their extended families. And that is what I am committed to doing.”

Sgt. Pennie said that during the holiday season and throughout the year, he prayed that the people of Dallas would remember those who had given their lives serving people whom they took an oath to serve. “We must not forget them or their families,” he said. “We must ensure that their memories live on forever.”