Brentwood, TN – At a November 2020 Brentwood City Commission Meeting, City leaders reviewed plans for a memorial wall to be located at the new Brentwood Police Department Headquarters now under construction and set to open in spring 2021. The new 55,000 square foot building will include an outdoor memorial wall located at the employee entrance of the building. The wall will be city-funded and serve as a place to honor those like fallen Officer Destin Legieza who was killed in June 2020 by a drunk driver on Franklin Road. Other names to be included on the wall will be department retirees who have served more than twenty years.
The wall made of granite will be slightly more than twenty feet long and eighteen inches wide. Due to the varying slope it sits on, the wall height varies from three feet and four inches to three feet and ten inches above the ground. The wall will be two-sided and the names of fallen officers and retirees will face the employee entrance. The memorial facing the parking lot will have the phrase, Loyalty Above All Else Except Honor, which is a Brentwood Police Department motto. Chief Jeff Hughes said he wanted to have the memorial wall serve as a reminder to every officer who enters the building. “The wall will be a visual symbol that any day we could lose one of our own,” said Chief Hughes. “Officer Legeiza was only 30 years old; way too young to be taken. The wall will serve as a reminder that life is precious and law enforcement can be a dangerous career,” added Chief Hughes.
Plans also include a sculpture of a bronze lion overlooking the memorial wall. To be sculpted by artist Cindy Billingsley, the bronze statue will symbolize the protective role of law enforcement officers and convey the strength, courage and valor that are hallmarks of those who serve and protect. The idea is similar to the lions protecting their cubs at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C.
Billingsley, an artist from Cookeville, Tennessee, has contracted with the City of Brentwood on other projects, specifically art sculptures at the Brentwood Library. The lion will be thirty-two inches high, thirty-two inches wide, and five feet long. The sculpture will be permanently mounted to a granite base to match the Memorial Wall.
The cost of the lion sculpture is budgeted at $45,000 and includes molds and casting and artist costs of labor, materials, and installation. While the City is funding the memorial wall, the Brentwood Police Department intends to raise the money through private donations to cover the cost of the lion sculpture.
Chief Hughes noted, “the timeliness of beginning this project is crucial to allow ample time for the sculpture to be completed and installed prior to the grand opening of Police Headquarters in the spring of 2021.”
If you or your business is interested in donating to the Brentwood Police Department memorial sculpture, please find more details on our website at, www.brentwoodtn.gov/PoliceDonations You are able to make check, cash or online donations.
