Thousands expected at service for slain park ranger
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TACOMA, Wash. -- Thousands of people are expected at Tuesday's memorial service for Margaret Anderson, the Mount Rainier National Park ranger who was fatally shot on New Year's Day.
A procession of law enforcement vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and other emergency service vehicles left the Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood Tuesday morning and arrived at Trinity Lutheran Church where friends and law enforcement officers from around the country were waiting.
One of those along the procession route was Rick Urton, standing at attention with a hand-held flag at half staff and a sign that read "God Bless Police & Fire, Heroes All."
Urton says he made the sign after four Lakewood Police officers were shot and killed by Maurice Clemmons in 2009 and was out there again with the sign during the memorial procession for Deputy Kent Mundell who was fatally wounded in a shootout during a domestic violence disturbance.
He felt he needed to be out there again, he said, and hoped he'd never have to attend another procession. But he says he feels it might not be the last time.
Michael Jacobs, a retired park ranger, drove 700 miles from California to show his support for Anderson's family, colleagues and the community.
"Ranger Anderson joined to help people and to serve," said Jacobs, a reserve deputy with the Placer County Sheriff's Department and one of hundreds of law enforcement and other officers who came to honor Anderson. "It was extremely tragic."
The 90-minute service is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Pacific Lutheran University. An overflow venue has been set up at Rainier View Christian Church in Tacoma.
Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two young girls, was shot and killed after setting up a roadblock to stop a vehicle that blew through a checkpoint on the road to the park's visitor center. The driver of that vehicle shot Anderson in her car and fled on foot. Searchers found the body of the suspect, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran Benjamin Colton Barnes, in a snowy creek. An autopsy showed he died of hypothermia and drowning.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis are scheduled to speak, along with local ministers.
Anderson had served as a ranger at Mount Rainier south of Seattle for three years. She was married to another ranger, Eric Anderson, who was on duty elsewhere in the park when she was killed.
The daughter of a Lutheran minister, Anderson grew up in New Jersey and earned a bachelor's degree in fisheries and wildlife from Kansas State University and a master's degree in biology from Fort Hays State University in Kansas, local media have reported.
She began working with the National Park Service as a law enforcement ranger at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, where she met her husband. She also worked as a law enforcement park ranger at Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park.
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You can watch the memorial service live on komonews.com beginning at 12:45 p.m.
A procession of law enforcement vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and other emergency service vehicles left the Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood Tuesday morning and arrived at Trinity Lutheran Church where friends and law enforcement officers from around the country were waiting.
One of those along the procession route was Rick Urton, standing at attention with a hand-held flag at half staff and a sign that read "God Bless Police & Fire, Heroes All."
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He felt he needed to be out there again, he said, and hoped he'd never have to attend another procession. But he says he feels it might not be the last time.
Michael Jacobs, a retired park ranger, drove 700 miles from California to show his support for Anderson's family, colleagues and the community.
"Ranger Anderson joined to help people and to serve," said Jacobs, a reserve deputy with the Placer County Sheriff's Department and one of hundreds of law enforcement and other officers who came to honor Anderson. "It was extremely tragic."
The 90-minute service is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Pacific Lutheran University. An overflow venue has been set up at Rainier View Christian Church in Tacoma.
Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two young girls, was shot and killed after setting up a roadblock to stop a vehicle that blew through a checkpoint on the road to the park's visitor center. The driver of that vehicle shot Anderson in her car and fled on foot. Searchers found the body of the suspect, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran Benjamin Colton Barnes, in a snowy creek. An autopsy showed he died of hypothermia and drowning.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis are scheduled to speak, along with local ministers.
Anderson had served as a ranger at Mount Rainier south of Seattle for three years. She was married to another ranger, Eric Anderson, who was on duty elsewhere in the park when she was killed.
The daughter of a Lutheran minister, Anderson grew up in New Jersey and earned a bachelor's degree in fisheries and wildlife from Kansas State University and a master's degree in biology from Fort Hays State University in Kansas, local media have reported.
She began working with the National Park Service as a law enforcement ranger at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, where she met her husband. She also worked as a law enforcement park ranger at Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park.
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You can watch the memorial service live on komonews.com beginning at 12:45 p.m.
