First Austin Police Monument Installed
In 2001 near the intersection of I-35 and Onion Creek, Officer Clinton Hunter was killed by a drunk driver attempting to flee police pursuit. Now a 5 foot tall granite memorial tells of his sacrifice.
For 11 year old daughter Mikayla Hunter, the stone serves as a reminder of a father who passed away when she was only two and a half years old.
Hunter said the monument will remind her of a man that was “very brave.”
“It was kind of upsetting to not get to know him very well,” she said.
The project is the brainchild of Officer Jason Huskins, who plans to install similar monuments for all twenty APD officers who have died on the job. The first one killed in 1875.
The monuments are donated, and Huskins says the trickiest part of the plan was changing city and state ordinances to allow them to be installed.
“We have the private property agreements where they allow us to put it in their property,” said Huskins, “and for the ones where that’s not feasible or they don’t want to do it then we have the right-of-way access, where they actually go in the right-of-way.”
Some have balked at the idea of a memorial stone near their property.
Onion Creek resident Connie Malone, says she likes the plan as long as the stones don’t stand out too much from the rest of the landscaping.
“I hadn’t heard of this program before, but it kind of seems like a good idea to honor those people who were killed,” said Malone.
“It’s kind of like those crosses you see everywhere, which a lot of people don’t like cause they put flowers on them.”
Officer Huskins says after the monuments are in place, his job is done. But families may decide to leave offerings like flowers in remembrance of the dead.
He intends to first install monuments for officers with living relatives. He’s not sure how long the project will take to complete.
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