On Sunday, Aug. 28, Harvard police officers and volunteers joined others in dozens of Massachusetts towns in “wrapping the state in blue” in honor of law enforcement officers everywhere. Ribbons can be seen around utility poles in the center of town and around poles at the Public Safety Building. Harvard Detective Daniele Fortunato told the Press this week that the effort was part of an initiative started by the Mass. State Police Wives organization earlier this month.
Many of the trees on the Common are wrapped in blue ribbons. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
According to an Aug. 4 report in the Groton Herald, Sharon Mayer and Kimberly Watson started the MSP Wives in March after the death of Trooper Thomas Cardy, a Hudson resident who was killed during a traffic stop on the MassPike in Charlton when a speeding vehicle struck his state police cruiser. The group’s motto is “Behind every badge is a family.” Mayer and Watson were inspired to start the blue ribbon effort in Massachusetts by New York residents Carmen Shouldis and Lori Ann Zangla-Mohlenhoff, who started a blue ribbon project in their state in July; both are wives of New York police officers.
Shouldis told a blogger at the Staten Island, New York, local news website that she got the idea for the blue ribbons campaign after being “sickened” by the July 17 ambush of four police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She said that the blue ribbons effort is now in at least 20 states, and they hope to see the blue show of support in all 50 states soon.
