Project Blue Light to Honor Fallen Officers
SOUTH CHARLESTON – The West Virginia State Police and the national grief support organization, COPS (Concerns of Police Survivors), are asking citizens and law enforcement agencies nationwide to support Project Blue Light during the holiday season.
During the holidays, citizens are asked to include at least one blue light in holiday decorations in honor of law enforcement officers who have given their lives in the line of duty and to show support and appreciation to those officers who continue to put their lives on the line every day.
Several years ago, Mrs. Dolly Craig, the surviving mother-in-law of Daniel Gleason, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police officer killed in the line of duty in 1986, sent her Christmas message to the COPS National Office. Her daughter Pam, the surviving widow of Officer Gleason, had been killed in a car accident in August 1988, before the holiday season. Dolly wrote, “This holiday I’m putting two blue lights in my living room window. One is for Dan and the other is for Pam, who believed so much in the COPS Organization.”
Dolly Craig is now deceased as well, but her idea is her legacy. Project Blue Light now burns bright in the hearts of the nearly 10,000 surviving families who comprise COPS, a national non-profit organization that assists the surviving families of officers killed in the line of duty as they rebuild their shattered lives.
“This is the seventh year the West Virginia State Police has been involved in Project Blue Light,” said Colonel Howard E. Hill, Jr., Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police. “I encourage everyone to display a blue light in your holiday decorations in honor of the law enforcement officers nationwide who have given the ultimate sacrifice to ‘serve and protect’”.
On Friday, December 17, 2004, the West Virginia State Police will also be joining other law enforcement agencies and members of the traffic safety community in the “Lights on for Life” campaign. On this day, drivers are asked to turn on their headlights in memory of those who have lost their lives to impaired drivers and as a reminder for others not to drink and drive.