- Families and law enforcement colleagues honored fallen officers at the Police Week Candlelight Vigil on Wednesday.
- Tremonton-Garland Police Sgt. Lee Sorensen and officer Eric Estrada were among those remembered.
- The annual vigil, held in thunderstorms and rain, honored officers from across the country who died in the line of duty.
WASHINGTON — It was the kind of rain that made you wonder if the vigil would happen at all.
As families and law enforcement officers from across the country arrived at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial for the Police Week Candlelight Vigil, the rain was coming down hard.
However, as the start time drew closer, the skies slowly cleared. It was just enough for families, friends and law enforcement agencies from across the country to come together as one.
For Lanette Sorensen, that moment meant everything.
"The support that we have received has been incredibly overwhelming," she said.
Sorensen is the wife of the late Tremonton-Garland Police Sgt. Lee Sorensen, who was killed in the line of duty this past summer alongside officer Eric Estrada. Standing among hundreds of other families in Washington, D.C., she described the emotions she experienced at the vigil.
"Sad, happy. All the emotions, but it's been good," Sorensen said. "I think it's been good for me. It's been good for the kids. It's been good for the families."
The annual vigil honors officers from across the country who died in the line of duty. It's a ceremony of remembrance not just for those lost, but for the people they left behind.
Organizers shortened speeches as more rain and lightning were forecast for the area, focusing on what mattered most: reading the names of the fallen.
One by one, those names echoed through the crowd, and when they did, those who knew them stood.
A bell rang.
Then came the candles, thousands of small flames flickering in the wind, refusing to go out.
Just as those lights came together, the rain returned, falling at the very end of the vigil. Some might call it weather, others might call it something more.
Either way, for families like the Sorensens and the Estradas, the vigil was a moment they needed.
"I don't think we would have made it through without all the people that have surrounded our family," Sorensen said.
That, many say, is what Police Week is really about: making sure no family walks through loss alone.
