Joshua Briese had not yet completed his first year with the Gila River Police Department when his life was taken. He was 23 years old, still completing field training, still learning the work that asks an officer to enter moments of danger so others do not have to face them alone. On June 1, 2024, that unfinished promise became a permanent loss. Officer Briese was shot and killed while responding to a⊠Read more
Bradley J. Reckling was 30 years old when his life was taken. On June 22, 2024, the Oakland County Sheriffâs Office deputy was conducting surveillance related to a stolen vehicle in Madison Heights, Michigan, when gunfire ended a life that had already given approximately nine years to public service. The loss is difficult to measure because a badge records only the outline of a person. It cannot hold the years Bradley spent⊠Read more
A family, a police division, and a city were left with an absence that cannot be repaired when Police Officer Jamieson Ritter was killed by gunfire on July 4, 2024. He was 27 years old. For the Cleveland Division of Police, he was not a name in a memorial ledger but a fellow officer who had spent four years answering the demands of the badge. Ritter was attempting to help take a⊠Read more
On July 11, 2024, a family, a law-enforcement community, and Harris County were left carrying a loss that cannot be repaired. Deputy Sheriff Fernando Esqueda was 28 years old when gunfire ended his life while he was doing the work he had chosen: investigating a vehicle connected to an aggravated assault. The facts are brief, but the grief they contain is not. Esqueda had served with the Harris County Sheriffâs Office for⊠Read more
Corporal Mohamed âMoeâ Said was 26 when gunfire ended his service with the Melvindale Police Department on July 21, 2024. He wore badge 10 and had served 1 year and 2 months. His name deserves remembrance beyond the record: as a young officer, a public servant, and a life taken too soon. Read more
Senior Corporal Segus R. Jolivette, Sr. served Lafayette for 11 years across patrol, investigations, school safety, and SWAT negotiations. At 35, he was killed by gunfire during a hostage barricade on July 25, 2024, leaving a department and community to mourn a public servant whose life was devoted to helping others through danger. Read more
At about 1:25 a.m. on July 30, 2024, Deputy Sheriff Rafael Wordlaw was sitting in a car while a friend pumped gas. Then an armed robbery began. Wordlaw was off duty, but the badge had shaped the kind of person who could not simply watch someone else face danger alone. He intervened, and the violence that followed took his life at 31. Wordlaw served the Cook County Sheriffâs Office - Department of⊠Read more
Master Deputy Sheriff Bradley Michael Link of the Lake County Sheriffâs Office died from gunfire on August 3, 2024. At 28, the Army Reserve veteran had served approximately six years in law enforcement. During a response near Eustis, his return of fire enabled other deputies to escape. Read more
On August 9, 2024, Hunter Reedyâs life was taken by gunfire while he was assisting Marion Police Department officers with a traffic stop. He was 27 years old. In that stark fact is a grief that reaches far beyond a uniform: a young man who had chosen public service, a deputy whose future was still unfolding, and a community now forced to carry the silence left behind. Deputy Sheriff Reedy served with⊠Read more
On August 17, 2024, Paulding County lost Deputy Sheriff Brandon Tyler Cunningham. He was 30 years old. The loss is difficult to measure because a life is more than a date, a badge number, or a line in a memorial recordâbut those facts still make the absence painfully clear: Cunningham should have had more years to live, serve, and return home. Cunningham wore badge number 1169 and had served the Paulding County⊠Read more
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