Three paragraphs on the “Officer Down Memorial Page,” which lists the names of police officers who were killed in the line of duty, attempt to sum up Patrol Office Walter B. Harris’s life and career.
“Officer Down” states that Harris, who was a Princeton Borough police officer, was shot and killed while responded to the sounds of gunfire at a social club near his home on John Street.
This event happened just after midnight on Feb. 2, 1946. Harris learned of a disturbance at the Charcoal Club, which was a men’s social club. He went to the club and found three armed men who were threatening patrons.
Harris confronted the men, and was shot by one of the men. He died of the gunshot wound a short time later at the Princeton Hospital. He was buried in the Princeton Cemetery.
Harris was 31 years old. He had grown up in Princeton, where he had served as a police officer for three years.
The armed men were quickly arrested. Two of the men were convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison. One man was paroled in 1952, and the other man was paroled in 1957. The third man was acquitted in the trial.
Harris, who left behind a wife and two young daughters, has been memorialized in an annual ceremony that takes place around the anniversary of his death. This year, it was held on Jan. 31 in the courtyard at the Witherspoon Hall Municipal Building.
The Princeton Police Department’s color guard marched out into the courtyard. Several police officers stood to one side. All were wearing black and blue mourning bands across their badges.
Princeton Police Chief Nicholas Sutter announced the ceremony that honored Harris. He was the second black police officer in the former Princeton Borough Police Department, and the only Princeton Borough Police Department police officer to be killed in the line of duty.
As Harris’s daughters, Monetta Harris and Florence Broadway, and family members watched, Mayor Liz Lempert read a proclamation that declared Feb. 2 as “Walter B. Harris Day,” and that all flags at the municipal building would fly at half-mast.
The mayoral proclamation stated that Harris was a “very capable, honest, trustworthy police officer.”
Mayor Lempert thanked the Princeton Police Department for holding the ceremony, and for all of the work that the police officers do to ensure the public is safe. The ceremony is a reminder of the oath office that they took when they were sworn in as police officers, she said.
Harris’s name is inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C., along with the names of other police officers who have died in the line of duty.
Chief Sutter and Harris’s two daughters laid a wreath at the granite memorial to Harris. Princeton Police Officer Christopher King, the department’s bag-piper, played “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes.
After the ceremony, Harris said the family appreciates that Princeton and the Princeton Police Department remember her father. She was 6 years old when her father was killed.
“It is very emotional,” said Broadway, who was 3 years old in 1946.
“As we get older, it gets more emotional. I think about my mother. The whole Princeton Police Department has been so supportive of us,” Broadway said.
For many years, there was a plaque at the former Princeton Borough Hall – now known as Monument Hall – that acknowledged Harris’s death.
Five years ago, a granite monument was placed in the courtyard at the Witherspoon Hall Municipal Building to acknowledge the fallen police officer.