The life and legacy of fallen St. Albert RCMP Const. David Wynn will be honoured with a special memorial and an endowment fund.
The design for the memorial was unveiled near Lacombe Park Lake in St. Albert Tuesday. Benches will surround a plaque on a large rock next to the Sturgeon River. Anyone reading the plaque will be facing east, which is where the Wynns are originally from.
“I’m very pleased with this. This is going to be something very special,” Wynn’s widow Shelly said.
“It’s going to be nice for me to have some place to go.”
She explained the simple plaque fits who Dave was.
“Dave was not a very extravagant person and he probably… wouldn’t have wanted something over the top. I think the endowment fund is going to be more important and something Dave would appreciate more.”
The memorial in the park is intended as a place for reflection. Mayor Nolan Crouse hopes it will be completed by October.
“This park is one of the first places he brought our sons fishing,” Shelly Wynn said.
She also thanked the community for the love and support it has shown her and her sons over the past year-and-a-half.
“It’s been pretty amazing,” Shelly Wynn said, her voice breaking. “I remember coming home from the hospital that morning after Dave passed and seeing all the white ribbons and that was pretty amazing.”
READ MORE: ‘We’re saying our goodbyes today’: wife of St. Albert RCMP Const. Wynn
Const. Wynn was shot while investigating a vehicle theft in the community just outside Edmonton on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015. Police said it was a routine licence plate check that led to 42-year-old Wynn being critically injured in a confrontation at the Apex Casino in St. Albert.
Wynn and Auxiliary Const. Derek Bond, 49, had just identified a truck with licence plates that didn’t match registration, when 34-year-old Shawn Maxwell Rehn fired at the officers at close range. Wynn was shot in the head; Bond was hit in the arm and torso. Rehn’s body was later found at a nearby residence, dead of an apparent suicide.
READ MORE: RCMP seeking ‘accountability’ after Alberta RCMP shooter released from jail
Thousands of people attended the regimental funeral.
READ MORE: Thousands pay respects to St. Albert RCMP Const. David Wynn at regimental funeral
After Wynn’s death, a committee was struck in order to come up with a way to honour him.
It created “two visions of legacy”: the memorial and the endowment fund, which will provide ongoing support to youth who want to enter police or military careers.
“He loved going to visit the children every morning before he’d start his shift,” Shelly explained. “He was trying to make the children realize that the officers are good people, they’re not bad people, they’re there to help them and try to lead them down a path that was a good one.”
“Residents of this community will never forget the kind of man Dave Wynn was and what he stood for,” Crouse said.
“I’m confident these efforts will ensure his memory will live on and his story will continue to influence young and old to do what’s right for your community.”
A $100,000-donation from the City of St. Albert, donations from the community and a hockey game fundraiser in October will help fund the tribute.
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