Blue lights in front of Renton City Hall honor slain Lakewood officers

By Dean Radford • December 7, 2009 4:34 pm
The trees in front of Renton City Hall will be lit in blue through Jan. 1 to honor the four Lakewood police officers who were shot to death. It's the city's first observance of the nationwide Project Blue Light.
The trees in front of Renton City Hall will be lit in blue through Jan. 1 to honor the four Lakewood police officers who were shot to death. It's the city's first observance of the nationwide Project Blue Light.

The trees in front of Renton City Hall turned blue Monday evening in honor of the four Lakewood police officers killed Nov. 29.

City parks crews installed the lights Monday morning as part of the City of Renton’s first-ever observance of the national Project Blue Light. The lights will switch on at about 4:30 p.m.

The lights are part of the Renton community’s remembrance of the four Lakewood officers – Sgt. Mark Renninger and Officers Tina Griswold, Gregory Richards and Ronnie Owens – shot to death down at a coffee shop in Pierce County.

The suspect in the shootings, Maurice Clemmons, was fatally wounded by a Seattle police officer on Dec. 2 in south Seattle.

A contingent of up to 40 members of the Renton Police Department, including officers and command staff such as Police Chief Kevin Milosevich, will attend a memorial service Tuesday for the Lakewood officers.

“We will be well-represented,” Milosevich said.

Many know Renninger professionally and personally. He was a member of the South King County regional SWAT team when he was an officer with the Tukwila Police Department.

“He worked alongside many of our officers,” Milosevich said.

The shootings are “kind of an awakening,” Milosevich said. The officers weren’t killed making an arrest or in some other confrontational situation.

“Those officers were killed for just wearing a uniform that day,” Milosevich said.

Renton Police officers won’t change their routines because of the shootings. The Lakewood sergeant and three officers were starting their day at a coffee shop, doing some routine paperwork, when they were gunned down.

In the wake of the shooting some police departments have decided that officers will no longer do paperwork in a public place.

Renton Police officers do their reports sitting in their vehicles, Milosevich. However, he wants his officers to be seen in public.

“We don’t want to lose that contact with the public,” he said. “We still rely on the public to get our jobs done.”

What would become Project Blue Light started in 1988 when a Philadelphia woman put blue lights in her window for the holiday season to remember her son-in-law, a police officer who was killed in the line of duty.

The Blue Light Project also is a way to say thanks to the nation’s police officers.

The blue lights will remain on until 7 a.m. on Jan. 1, when the Blue Light Project nationwide traditionally ends, according to Tina Harris with the Renton Police Department, who helped organize the city’s observance.