Remembering the fallen

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Theron Houlditch. A Mountain Brook police officer, he was checking on an abandoned car when a teenager on a motorcycle sped over the hill behind him and struck him. Houlditch, 38, had served on the force for 17 years and left a wife, daughter and two sons. 

His memory, as well as the two other Mountain Brook police officers killed in the line of duty, will be honored on Monday, May 11, at 11 a.m.

Mountain Brook Police will hold a wreath-laying ceremony as a part of National Police Week. The wreath will remain on the police memorial that bears Houlditch’s name and date of death outside the department for the remainder of the week. 

Also on the memorial, you will find the names Freddie Jackson Harp, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in 1973, and George Todd Herring, who was struck by a truck while he escorted a funeral procession in 1987.

Families of all three officers will travel from in town and as far away as Texas and Miami to attend the ceremony and a lunch for families that will follow at City Hall. 

Mountain Brook Police Chief Ted Cook has experienced a similar ceremony that is held in Judiciary Square in Washington, D.C. each May by Concerns of Police Survivors. Families who have lost loved ones in the line of duty come from all over the country for it. The first time Cook attended, he was with families of three fellow officers with the Birmingham Police Department who had been killed. It looks like a sea of people, he said.

“It’s phenomenal,” he said. 

Cook said it wasn’t as clear how as a local department they should recognize the memory of fallen officers, but they decided to plan this event at the encouragement of Jim Henderson, a retired Birmingham Police officer in Fultondale who has spearheaded similar events in recent years.

“It’s difficult to know when families want to continue to be involved and relive the pain of a service like that,” Cook said. 

Former Police Chief Marty Keely, now the district marshal, will speak at the ceremony. Kidder served on the force during the death of the first, Harp, and was chief when the second, Herring, was killed.  

Cook said residents might see flowers on the memorial from time to time that they place out to mark the anniversary of the death of an officer.

The last time a service was held at the memorial was its rededication when the new police building was completed. 

 “We do it to remember the sacrifices officers made for others in the line of duty,” Cook said.