2 Metro officers receive national recognition for COVID deaths
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial will add two fallen Metropolitan Police Department employees to its wall in May.
Sgt. Douglas King and Officer Phil Closi, who both died of COVID-19, will be added to the wall and formally dedicated at the 35th annual vigil in Washington D.C., according to a letter their families received.
Phil Closi died Aug. 11, 2021, at 48. King was 35 when he died Aug. 23, 2021.
Their wives, Jenn Closi and Cinnamon King, both received letters this week that the officers’ names will be engraved onto the wall in Washington, and the corresponding Nevada Law Enforcement Memorial in Carson City.
“I still can’t believe it’s real,” Jenn Closi said Tuesday. “I cried like a baby but happy tears when I got the letter.”
Cinnamon King said she was ecstatic her husband was getting the recognition he deserved. Now, the women are hoping Metro will change its decision not to include Closi and King as line of duty deaths within the department.
“I think it’s shameful he’s not being recognized locally where he served and protected the community,” King said.
At least seven Metro employees died from the virus between 2020 and May, but federal records show that the department considered only two of them line-of-duty deaths. The department declined to comment on why officer Jason Swanger and Lt. Erik Lloyd were the only officers who received this distinction.
The officers who were ruled to not have died in the line of duty had no planes fly overhead at their funeral, their “end of watch call” did not play over the police radio, and their names were excluded from the wall at Metro headquarters, Carson City’s Police Memorial Park and in Washington D.C. Closi’s family lost its health insurance when he died, Jenn Closi said.
Jenn Closi and Cinnamon King insisted that both men contracted the virus while at work, but Metro claimed contract tracing excluded them from being line-of-duty deaths.
Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.
