Road blocks will be set up this Saturday, October 21st from 8:00am – 12:00 noon as part of a fundraiser for the Etowah County Law Enforcement Memorial.

Volunteers and law enforcement officers will be on Rainbow Drive in front of Colonial Mall-Gadsden, Noccalula Road in front of Noccalula Falls Park and at the intersection of East Broad Street and Hood Avenue in Gadsden, Highway 431 at Air Depot Road in Glencoe and Highway 77 in Rainbow City.    

Donations are used to help law enforcement officers who are sick or injured and out of work and in need of support from their law enforcement family. The memorial fund also assists families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty and pay for an officer to attend the national candlelight vigil held each year in Washington, D.C., at the National Law Enforcement Memorial.

The Etowah County Law Enforcement Memorial currently sits on the grounds at the Etowah County Courthouse and contains names of law enforcement officers from Etowah County killed in the line of duty. The memorial, unveiled in May 1998, originally was placed at Noccalula Falls Park.

The names include Capt. Chris McCurley who was killed October 10th of 1997 in a shootout with a drug dealer in Rainbow City.  McCurley’s death led to the idea of the monument and the creation of the Law Enforcement Memorial Board.  The road block is held yearly in October near the time of the anniversary of the shooting.

Anyone wishing to make a donation to the Memorial Fund, can mail it to the Etowah County Law Enforcement Memorial, 128 South Eighth Street, Gadsden, AL 35901.

The following names are inscribed on the memorial:

• D.J. Kinney, Gadsden Police Department, 11/12/1888
• J.N. Holsonback, United States Marshal, 1/11/1902
• Pink Jenkins, Attalla Police Department, 9/26/1903
• Elbert R. Abernathy, Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, 08/18/1906
• Ernest W. Birt, Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, 2/14/1911
• William A. Patterson, Alabama City Police Department, 1/1/1912
• Henry Ingram, Attalla Police Department, 11/2/1924
• Henry “Newt” Wilson, Piedmont Constable, 11/23/1926
• John W. O’Bryen, Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, 9/1/1929
• John Oscar Johnson, Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, 11/20/1931
• Charles Cook, Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, 8/1/1942
• Charles Gordon Cox, Gadsden Police Department, 11/17/1942
• Arvil O. Hudson, Alabama State Trooper, 5/12/1952
• Grover C. “Ned” Pearce, Attalla Police Department, 4/12/1955
• Richard Perkins, Gadsden Police Department, 6/4/1958
• Ormand Franklin Watkins, Alabama State Trooper, 4/11/1971
• C. L. Starling, Attalla Police Department, 2/22/1975
• Jimmy Ray McKiven, Gadsden Police Department, 9/16/1983
• Peter Christopher McCurley, Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, 10/10/1997
• John Scott Starratt, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1/31/2001