(Updated at 10:15 a.m.) Arlington’s Peace Officers Memorial Day ceremony this morning added a new name to its memorial for police officers killed in the line of duty: the county’s seventh and its first since 1977.
Corporal Harvey Snook, an Army veteran, died in January 2016 from cancer he contracted from responding to the Pentagon after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Snook spent a week at the Pentagon after a plane crashed into its western side at 9:37 a.m. that day, collecting evidence and the remains of some of the 189 people killed.
Snook’s plaque was unveiled at the memorial outside Arlington police headquarters in Courthouse, with more than 200 people present, including law enforcement officials from around the county and the region, U.S. Park Police and representatives from the Metropolitan Police in London.
His plaque was the first to be added to the memorial since it was dedicated in 2005.
Arlington Police Chief Jay Farr paid tribute to Snook’s lively personality, which persisted even after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and said his response at the Pentagon on 9/11 “encompassed who he was.”
“Harvey was the kind of guy who brought joy to this job,” Farr said. “He brought joy to it every day.”
The ceremony included bagpipers playing “Amazing Grace,” readings from police and county officials, and a flyover by the Fairfax County Police helicopter. During the ceremony, a dispatcher from the county’s Emergency Communications Center read a tribute to Snook over a police radio channel and announced that Snook — identified by his ACPD unit number, 884 — had ended his tour of duty.
“In valor, there is hope,” the dispatcher said.