On October 25, an emotional ceremony took place at the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C., to unveil the Honor Chair, a one-of-a-kind tribute piece that preserves the memory of all fallen law enforcement officers across the country.

The Honor Chair is a custom wood memorial chair that was created and donated by Saving a Hero’s Place, a Texas-based nonprofit organization run by police officers and their families that is dedicated to ensuring that the legacies of the nation’s fallen heroes are never forgotten. The organization, with support from FinancialCop, built the chair on site at the museum over the course of two days, with assistance from D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers and other supporters.

Saving a Hero’s Place was formed out of tragedy in 2013. Executive Director Tommy Capell, then an officer with the San Antonio Police Department who did woodworking as a hobby, was contacted by a fellow officer to build a chair in honor of a San Antonio police officer who died in the line of duty. The chair was completed in March 2013 and placed in the substation where the officer had worked. 

The San Antonio memorial chair was meant to be a one-time project, Capell shares, but that same year, on April 18, MIT Police Officer Sean Collier was tragically killed in a confrontation with the Boston Marathon bombers. His death galvanized Capell to reach out to the MIT Police Department and offer to build a chair honoring Collier’s service and sacrifice. When the department agreed, Capell and his wife started raising money from community members, friends and family to cover the cost of creating and transporting the chair. They established Saving a Hero’s Place soon after realizing there was a need for these kinds of memorials. The organization has since grown to create and deliver 270 chairs across the country, all made possible through donations.

“We build wood memorial chairs, and the intention is for the chairs to be placed in the roll call room so when the officers are no longer there, when they’re killed in the line of duty, that chair is supposed to take their place so that they always have a place in the roll call room,” Capell explains.

This year, in addition to building chairs in Texas and other off-site locations and then delivering them to their destinations, the organization began constructing chairs on location at the fallen officer’s department so that officers and family could participate in the design and overall creation of the memorial. Upon a chair’s completion, the organization presents it to the department in a dedication ceremony.

“We’ve been wanting to do this so long for the museum,” Capell says of the Honor Chair, which he says “signifies saving the place of all the nation’s fallen.”

At the unveiling ceremony, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) CEO Bill Alexander noted that the Honor Chair is an important component in the organization’s mission to honor the fallen and share the story of America’s law enforcement. “I can think of no more appropriate place to have an Honor Chair than right here, in the heart of our country, in the capital of the nation, and also right here at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and Museum, where we honor those men and women who have died in the line of duty and tell their stories,” he said.

“Most of the Honor Chairs are dedicated to a single line-of-duty death officer,” Alexander continued. “This chair will stand in for all the men and women who have died and will die in the future. We are incredibly grateful for [Saving a Hero’s Place’s] support and allowing us to have this Honor Chair — to have it stand in for too many men and women who have died in service.”

For more information about the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, visit NLEOMF.org. To learn more about Saving a Hero’s Place, visit savingaherosplace.org.