Survivor Stories of the Washington State Law Enforcement Memorial

My name is Sheri Brown Smith and I was born in 1956. The first 12 years of my life, I remember visiting my mom’s family in Seattle where my grandpa Weedin lived. He was a motorcycle officer for the Seattle Police Department. I remember hearing the roar of his motorcycle and his stories about being a motorcycle cop in Seattle. Grandpa retired from SPD and died due to illness before I turned 13-years old.

After grandpa’s death my mom’s brother Garth became an officer with SPD. He retired from them after 27 years of service.

Two of my brothers were with the King County Sheriff’s Office. My brother Mike had 41 years with the KCSO as a Detective when he retired.  My brother Mark started in SeaTac eventually becoming a motorcycle officer for Shoreline, a contract city for KCSO.  It was normal to regularly see and hear my brothers with their friends, many of whom were in uniform and all usually talking and laughing about everything. I adored all of them as amazing people and almost-family members.  And I respected them for their choice to work in law enforcement, their kindness and compassion and their strength when it mattered.

My brother Mike called me the morning of Mark’s accident, having been involved in a motorcycle vs. car accident while responding to what would later turn out to be a false alarm at a credit union. I was asked to get my parents and drive to Harborview. We spent two days praying for a miracle but Mark succumbed to his injuries on February 27, 1999.

It has been 27 years ago this month since Mark’s accident. Bless the Behind the Badge Foundation and Concerns of Police Survivor groups who were there for any and all of us even when we didn’t know we needed them. We still have them and as of 20 years ago we also have the Washington State Memorial. It is a beautiful monument for reflection and to reminisce.

One year after Mark died our family was invited to attend the WSLEM Officers’ Ball, Auction & Raffle Extravaganza.  We were told it was a Black-Tie affair with dinner, dancing and auctions. As a family we decided to attend to honor Mark. We found out later there would be two keynote speakers with the first being the State Attorney General and the second, my brother, Mike. No disrespect intended toward the Attorney General but when Mike spoke you could hear a pin-drop. All of his brothers and sisters in uniform and their families stopped talking to each other and hung on Mike’s every word when he spoke about Mark’s death. Mike is a double survivor – he is a survivor because his brother died AND he is a survivor because his co-worker died. Mike’s words were impactful to everyone in that room and everyone in that room absolutely understood his message.

Another agenda item at the event is a video roll-call presentation listing the names of officers that have died, sorted by year beginning with deaths that occurred as far back as the 1800’s. When the year of your officers’ death comes up the family members in attendance stand up silently to honor their officer as their name is shown on the screen. It is a beautiful and quiet tribute to their officer.

To my knowledge, my family is the only family that stands up twice during this presentation to honor a family member.  Not only did I lose my brother in 1999, but I am also the great-granddaughter of SPD Sgt. John Finis Weedin who was murdered in 1916.  He and another officer by the name of Robert Wiley took gunfire and their deaths became the first multiple killing of SPD officers in the line of duty.

I come from a long line of law enforcement officers with many years of accumulated service. John Finis Weedin was an SPD police officer for 22 years and had a wife and nine children at the time of his death.  Of those nine children, three became SPD officers with one of those being my grandfather mentioned in paragraph two. The Weedin police legacy has accumulated more than 119 years of police service to the city of Seattle which includes the 27 years contributed by my Uncle Garth.

Combine those years with the 51 accumulated years of my two brothers with the KCSO, the Weedin / Brown families have quite a legacy in King County.

Fun fact: John Finis Weedin and his brother William moved their families from Missouri to the Washington Territory in 1873 with one family homesteading in the Green Lake area and the other family homesteading in Wedgewood, near Wedgewood Rock. If the name “Weedin” sounds familiar to you it may be because of the street name Weedin Place in the Green Lake area of Seattle, which was named after the John Finis Weedin family. For the full story, please see the Seattle Times Parade magazine dated February 7, 2010, titled “Gunned Down in Sin City”.

Lastly both my brother and my great-great-grandfather’s names are memorialized on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C. and the Washington State Law Enforcement Memorial in Olympia along with thousands of other law enforcement officers who have sacrificed their lives for all of us. If I ever can attend police week again in Washington D.C., I will spend time at Panel 29E and Panel 46E to view and honor my great-great-grandfather’s and my brother’s names. This spring I plan to visit the wall in Olympia so I can visit both panels which proudly and beautifully display the names of John Finis Weedin and Mark W. Brown.

Thank you for allowing me the time to tell you about the Weedin / Brown families. We are proud of the members of our families who have served law enforcement and our communities. Respect and honor to all those in our law enforcement family!

— Sheri Smith

(Sister – Mark W. Brown – King County Sheriff’s Office – EOW 02.27.1999)

(Great Granddaughter – John F. Weedin – Seattle Police Department – EOW 07.24.1916)