Aug 29, 2003
Foundation to Donate Police Memorial to NJ
http://1010wins.com/topstories/winstopstories_story_241180531.html
The National Police Defense Foundation
said Friday that it has commissioned a sculpted memorial to honor police killed
in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and would like to donate the work to
the state of New Jersey.
The $75,000 cost is being raised through donations, said Joseph Occhipinti,
executive director of the Marlboro-based foundation.
"Our national headquarters is in New Jersey, so we considered keeping it in New
Jersey," Occhipinti said.
He also said New Jersey was a fitting location because many of the fallen
officers lived in the state.
Sixty officers died at the World Trade Center; 23 from the New York Police
Department, all of whom lived in New York state, and 37 from the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey, including 21 from New Jersey.
The state will consider the police memorial after planning a World Trade Center
Memorial, said Micah Rasmussen, a spokesman for Gov. James E. McGreevey.
The state has received 19 entries in a competition for a World Trade Center
Memorial and is working with families of victims to select a winner. No date is
set for an announcement, he said.
"We definitely feel strongly that everyone that died that day was a hero,"
Rasmussen said, adding that the governor wants to create a memorial that
represents all victims.
The governor's father, Jack McGreevey, is the legislative director for the
police foundation, and termed the memorial a "very noble thing," noting he is
the son of a Jersey City police officer, and brother of a former officer in
Patchogue, N.Y.
The elder McGreevey said he did not speak to his son about the project, but
attached a note to Occhipinti's March letter offering the memorial so the
governor's office would take a good look at the proposal.
Franco Minervini, the Monmouth County sculptor hired by the foundation, said he
started work two months ago on a nine-piece memorial that could be up to 19 feet
tall.
"Its theme is the eagle taking the flag, draping it over the World Trade Center,
taking it, with all its spiritual content, taking it to a better world," said
Minervini, who is creating the work at his studio in Freehold Township.
The memorial will include a 7-foot statue of a police officer, and will also
honor a police dog that died, he said.
It will be carved from gray-blue Indiana limestone and take at least six more
months to complete, said Minervini, 59, of Marlboro.
Minervini is a naturalized citizen who was born in Molsetta, Italy, and learned
his craft from his grandfather before coming to the U.S. in 1958, he said.