Massachusetts

Memorial Honors 2 Slain Dorchester-Born Law Enforcement Officers

Two Massachusetts law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty were honored Sunday morning.

The ceremony was held at Pope John Paul Park in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood to dedicate a new memorial in honor of slain Massachusetts State Police Trooper Mark Charbonnier and Sgt. Richard Dever of the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department.

Charbonnier was shot during a traffic stop by a paroled-ex convict in Kingston in 1994. Dever was stabbed to death in 2005 when he tried to help remove a violent man from a Charleston bar.

The officers were both raised in Dorchester.

Among those at the ceremony was Gov. Charlie Baker.

"(They were) a couple of kids from the neighborhood who grew up wanting to protect and serve," said Baker. "And they ended up on the wrong end of a terrible circumstance."

Both men were killed by career criminals.

"It has been 24 years since Mark's murder but not a day goes by that we don’t think of him as a family," said one member of Charbonnier's family.

The idea of the monument, which sits at the corner of Granite Avenue and Hilltop Street, came together about three years ago.

Both men's stories now live on through scholarships set up in their names to help families with tuition costs and youth leagues in Dorchester.

"To lose a brother and a best friend at the same time is heart-wrenching so it’s nice to have this memorial for the both of them," said Charbonnier's brother, Steven.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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