That you are prepared every day to show the greatest love of all. Because we are reminded that you willingly place yourself between us and harm. She said she felt assaulted - more vulnerable, less safe. She mourned the loss of her sense of security. Yesterday, one of the village members of Hoonah who spoke said she didn’t know Officers Wallace and Tokuoka but she mourned anyway. I don’t think my life should be valued any more than hers.” “Why should a police officer’s life count more? I have a wife. Eyeing the minimum mandatory 99 years sentence - Alaska has no capital punishment - for the murder of a peace officer, one of the recruits raised his hand and asked, Upon our return to the academy classroom the next morning, I began teaching the Alaska Criminal Code. Family and village members shared anecdotes of happier times in lives well and fully lived by the two officers. Tony and Matt were beloved by the village and the service was a celebration of their lives and a mourning of their loss. The day afforded moments of bittersweet laughter amongst the tears shed. They bore witness to what the path they had chosen could ask of them. Just before the remains of Officers Wallace and Tokuoka were brought in, the recruits were seated at the front of the gymnasium alongside the dignitaries. We were joined by Royal Canadian Mounted Police and American peace officers from as far away as Chicago and New York. The academy staff and I sat in the bleachers with law enforcement from around the state. Hundreds more waited at the terminal gates, and still hundreds more lined the streets and waited inside the Hoonah Junior/Senior High School gymnasium as the families of the two Hoonah police officers and accompanying law enforcement personnel arrived, along with the urns. Hundreds of people lined the deck of the Hoonah Ferry Terminal on Wednesday, waiting for the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Malaspina to bring the remains of Anthony Wallace and Matthew Tokuoka to this small Tlingit community. Juneau Empire reporter Klas Stolpe described the scene that day in the tiny, remote village: I joined the recruits, the academy staff and some of their spouses, local law enforcement and Coast Guard members for the five-and-a-half hour boat ride to a memorial service for the slain officers. Hoonah is a Tlingit community of less than 800 people on Chichagof Island off the coast from Juneau. In the smaller law enforcement family at the academy, the pain was palpable. The entire state was shocked and grieving. Two officers had been killed the week before in Hoonah, Alaska. I was in Sitka, Alaska, training a class of DPS recruits. Three recent gems of underreported “good news” show that pro-cop sentiment does exist in American citizens, and you can see it plainly if you look hard enough.
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