Yellow Pages
Planning the memorial service for slain Skagit County Sheriff’s Deputy Anne Jackson had to be done quickly, and the venue had to be big enough to accommodate thousands of people seeking to pay their respects, officials said Tuesday.
“We had goals; our primary one was to provide an outstanding service for Deputy Jackson and her family,” said Erica Work, spokeswoman for the 50-member team that planned the memorial. “Everything was planned around all that — how to honor her, bring in all the groups that needed to be there, make it safe for everyone and allow everyone who wanted to be there.”
Jackson was one of six people slain, victims of a homicidal rampage, Sept. 2 in the Alger area. Isaac Lee Zamora, 28, of Alger has been charged with the six slayings, as well as four assaults.
Jackson’s public memorial, attended by at least 4,000 people, was held Tuesday afternoon at the Burlington-Edision High School stadium. Representatives from more than 100 municipal law enforcement and fire departments, as well as state and federal agencies, either participated in the service or attended.
“It went amazingly smoothly,” said Work, who works for Mount Vernon Fire Department.
One of the biggest challenges was bringing together people from more than 100 different agencies for a large event in a mere four days, Work said.
“That’s where people in Skagit County were wonderful,” Work said. “The people from other jurisdictions were really impressed with how easy it was to work here.”
Deputies from Whatcom and Island counties’ sheriff’s departments provided patrol service so that all of their Skagit County brethren could attend the services.
Prior to the service, explosive-sniffing dogs patrolled the stadium with their handlers as a precaution, and dozens of officers directed people into the venue. Fire department ladder trucks elevated a flag for Jackson’s hearse to pass beneath.
Most of the preparation was done by the 50-person Northwest Incident Management Team, which was led by Mount Vernon Assistant Fire Chief Glenn Brautaset, said Skagit County Sheriff Rick Grimstead.
Team members also included representatives from the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, Mount Vernon police, Monroe Police, Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, State Patrol, Seattle Police and the 10-99 Foundation, a group named for the radio code that means “officer down.”
The team usually comes together to handle emergency incidents, such as floods. But it set up a command post at the sheriff’s office and went to work on the memorial effort, seeking a proper venue and working through logistics.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” Grimstead said.
Family members were brought into the process through a liaison from the sheriff’s office.
At the service, Mount Vernon police Lt. Chris Cammock, who acted as the master of ceremonies, explained about the tradition of law enforcement memorials and how different that was from the expectations of Jackson’s family.
“I asked the family what they wanted and they said: Small, private and short,” Cammock said. “I think they learned that their adopted family can only do it big and long-winded.”
A private service for family and the deputies who worked with Jackson was planned for another time.
Early on in the planning of the memorial service, the team realized that it had to plan for an audience that was the size of half the population of 8,500-resident Burlington, Work said.
The experiences of the Seattle Police Department, State Patrol and the 10-99 Foundation helped the team prepare.
One of the first steps was to find a large-enough venue on short notice, Work said. That involved brainstorming, including locations in Whatcom and Snohomish counties. Someone proposed the high school stadium, which had plenty of seats, some parking and a “helpful administration.”
“It was really important to keep it in Skagit,” Work said.
Once the team found the stadium, members brainstormed transportation issues. Skagit Transit and Burlington-Edison School District provided 21 buses that ferried the public and law enforcement officers attending the service to and from parking lots around Burlington, including at Cascade Mall, Work said.
Jackson’s honor guard of 250 officers — from various agencies in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia — had a practice session Tuesday morning to rehearse their role in the ceremony.
Law enforcement officers are trained to salute and march in time with fellow officers and they consider it an honor to be called to escort an officer who died in the line of duty.
“They have protocols that they follow,” Work said.
Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .
Reporter Ralph Schwartz also contributed to this article.
