Every day police officers go to work knowing the danger they face.
Families of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice are sharing their stories of loss.
It came during Monday’s Annual Police Officer Memorial at the State Capitol.
As Fox 47's Cryss Walker shows us the event is held to make sure we never forget.
Lydia Amaya and Karen Black knows what it's like to lose someone who laid down their life to protect another.
“I am a survivor of 37 years now,” said Amaya.
“My husband was with the Michigan State Police Trooper Craig A. Scott.”
“I am a sibling survivor, Darryl Black, Long beach Police Department California,” Karen told Cryss Walker.
The two are connected through the support group Michigan Concerns of Police Survivors, also known as MI-COPS.
For 26 years the organization honored the lives of fallen officers who were taken away from their loved-ones and communities, while serving in the line of duty.
“It's to let us know that our officer will never be forgotten,” Black explained.
“We need to know whether it's 50 years out, a hundred years out that they're not forgotten.”
The annual memorial brings life to their memories and comfort to the survivors they left behind.
“That's part of my healing process to know in the back of my mind, in the back of my head that Craig's death did not go in vain,” Amaya said.
“The importance of having these memorials is so crucial, is so important so I am so grateful that we have things like this today.”
To date 595 officers have lost their lives in the line of duty in Michigan.
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