Sadly, the one constant in the history of law enforcement is sacrifice. New Jersey State Police Detective Albert Mallen was killed in the line of duty in 1985. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), he was gunned down while serving a drug-related search warrant. His killer was captured and sentenced to death, but would ultimately die of natural causes before the sentence was carried out.

The tragic story didn’t end there, though. Mallen’s widow was still grieving when a representative of the Ocean–Monmouth 200 Club showed up on her doorstep with a check for $2,500. The nonprofit organization exists to provide assistance to the families of first responders killed in the line of duty. Driven by the act, Peggy Mallen-Walczak would go on to found a different chapter of the 200 Club in the Atlantic City area.

That same club is bigger now — big enough, in fact, to draw the likes of Kelsey Grammer to speak at its recent memorial ceremony. The television star is no stranger to grief; his sister, Karen, was murdered in 1975 at the age of 18. It’s a burden he’s carried with him throughout the ensuing decades, remarking that “ancient grief is forever fresh.”

While Grammer was certainly the most recognizable face at the event, he’d probably be the first to point out that he wasn’t the most important person there. The 200 Club prides itself on providing scholarships to children of officers killed in the line of duty. This year, the Albert J. Mallen Sr. Memorial Survivor Scholarship was presented to Adria McMeekin. Her father, Thomas, was an Atlantic City police officer who was killed in 2005.

The ultimate sacrifice deserves to be remembered, no matter how long ago it occurred. Laverne Harrison Carr was an Atlantic City police officer who was killed in the line of duty in 1929. He sustained a skull fracture during a wreck on his patrol motorcycle and died three days later. His death was largely unrecognized for most of recent history, but that changed last year when the ODMP uncovered a news article about his death. The Atlantic City Police Department worked with news station NBC 10 Philadelphia to track down several of Carr’s descendants. They joined the agency during a ceremony in late October to add Carr to the memorial that honors their officers who’ve died in the line of duty. Carr was also one of the honorees at the 200 Club’s ceremony. Furthermore, his name was added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this year and he was honored during National Police Week in Washington, D.C., in May.

It’s impossible to overstate just how much law enforcement has changed in the last hundred years. The advent of the automobile and mobile radio permanently altered policing, making it more efficient and less personal. The proliferation of less-lethal weapons changed societal expectations about use of force. The mass availability of personal cameras has brought a whole new dimension of difficulty to the job. Much has changed, but the sad reality of sacrifice remains constant. We live in a broken world, one full of pain and danger. Whether in 1929, 1975 or 2005, the safety of the public is often purchased at the cost of sacrifice on the part of law enforcement officers.