PORT ANGELES — Scores of police officers, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies — each with a black mourning band over his or her badge — bid farewell Saturday to Port Angeles Officer Brian Raymond.
They joined about 300 friends and family members in the Vern Burton Memorial Community Center to memorialize the 25-year police veteran who died March 26 of complications following surgery.
Raymond had planned to retire in May.
“He was excited to retire,” said his sister, Sara Jervis, “but he was going to miss his friends. He was going to miss his car.”
Raymond’s police cruiser, its own mourning band across its front doors, stood at the front of the room.
Solemn as the service sometimes was, it evoked more laughter than tears as Raymond’s colleagues rose to recall him.
