The Story Behind the National Law Enforcement Memorial
Before the names are etched in stone, there are lives. Families. Communities forever changed.
In Part 1 of this two-part conversation on Heroes Behind the Badge, we sit down with Bill Alexander, CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and a 25-year veteran of law enforcement.
This episode is not about headlines.
It’s not about politics.
And it’s not about statistics.
It’s about why the Memorial exists—and what it represents to the men and women who have stood watch over their communities for generations.
We talk about:
- What the Memorial means to officers who have lost colleagues
- The origin and mission of the National Law Enforcement Museum
- Why remembrance is a responsibility, not a ritual
- What Police Week reveals about the weight carried by surviving families
- Why every American should visit the Memorial at least once
This conversation is about legacy.
About sacrifice.
And about the quiet promise that no name is forgotten.
If you wear the badge, this episode honors those who came before you.
If you don’t, it offers a clearer understanding of what service has cost—and why it matters.
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Transcript
Dennis Collins: You know, I was excited when Craig told me that you were going to be our guest today, because I see you as kind of sitting in a very interesting place in law enforcement.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Of course, you served, many years, I think 24, 25 years as a law enforcement officer yourself.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: in Prince George's County, rising up from patrol all the way through the ranks, and up to commander. I think… I think when you left there, you were, like, commander of training and education, if I got my figures…
Speaker:Bill: You have your notes correct, yes, indeed. I was, the rank of major, and I was the commander of the training academy when I left.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: So, you've been there, done that, you've seen it all, you've been there, and I always wanted to know, as a veteran police officer, on the outside, looking in before you became part of the memorialial.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: What did an active duty law enforcement officer think about the work of the memorialial, the museum, the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund? What did an active duty law enforcement officer think about that, looking from the outside in, Bill?
Speaker:Bill: Sure, what an interesting question. One that I don't know that I've given a bunch of thought to, but I will try to give you my off-the-cuff thought.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Of course, sure, thank you.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Of course, sure, thank you.
Speaker:Bill: You know, part of my perspective is probably colored, or at least heavily influenced by the fact that I worked for a police department that was so close to Washington, D.C, and the proximity of the memorialial.
Speaker:Bill: I've certainly had conversations with Craig before, privately, but, during the 25 years I served with Prince George's County, we lost 16 of my peers.
Speaker:Bill: All of whom I knew, personally to varying degrees.
Speaker:Bill: And so, I, by virtue of our proximity and by virtue of the number of line of duty deaths that occurred during my 25 years, I was no stranger to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, I was no stranger to the Candlelight Vigil.
Speaker:Bill: I had been to too many candlelight vigils, trying to honor and remember my friends and peers and colleagues whose lives were cut short by virtue of their service and sacrifice.
Speaker:Bill: And so, I think…
Speaker:Bill: again, I think my perception there is heavily, heavily colored by the fact that I knew
Speaker:Bill: Intimately, sort of, what the memorialial meant, and how sacred it was for law enforcement, and how sacred it was for members of my department, who really did view that as a continuing legacy of the men and women we knew who had died in the line of duty.
Speaker:Bill: But I have to admit that, you know, outside of the heavy, heavy focus and events of Police Week and, say, the Candlelight Vigil, I don't know that there was a running theme of continually thinking about the memorialial beyond, say, Police Week.
Speaker:Bill: And the museum, such that it was clearly a long-term project and a long vision and dream of Craig's and the Memorial Fund for many, many years, that was not even on my radar until I retired from law enforcement and considered a job at the Memorial Fund, or at least threw my hat in the ring. I didn't even realize there was such a thing as the National Law Enforcement Museum.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: That's interesting.
Speaker:Bill: which speaks to a continuing challenge for the Memorial Fund, which is how to
Speaker:Bill: expose not just our audience, but the entire nation and even visitors from around the world to consider stopping by what, you know, I suspect even you would agree is a very special and unique place, helping to tell the story of American law enforcement. So, the museum was not on my radar at all, but I was certainly familiar with the memorialial.
Speaker:Bill: Had been there many times, again, to many candlelight vigils.
Speaker:Bill: And… I remember from my earliest days in law enforcement, I joined the police department in 1997,
Speaker:Bill: Not really cognizant of what it took to get that
Speaker:Bill: the memorialial created, but certainly very appreciative as just a rank-and-file police officer, that there was a place in the nation that recognized the men and women who had died in the line of duty. A very, very sacred space, even from my earliest days. Going through the academy, we talked about line of duty deaths and the line of duty deaths on my department, which had occurred before I had joined.
Speaker:Bill: And certainly the memorialial was a part of that conversation, recognizing that the service and sacrifice and the terrible cost to preserving our democracy every single year, historically measured in hundreds of lives.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: is preserved by virtue of this national monument, which recognizes line of duty death. So, it was ingrained in me, even in the earliest phases of my police career, how important this memorial and monument was.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: You know, I remember
Speaker:Dennis Collins: very first time I ever came to Washington on Police Week, I was like, wow. And, you know, I was talking to some of my buddies who are, you know, long-term police officers.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: And their thought was, every police officer at some point in their career has to come to Police Week.
Speaker:Bill: I could not agree more.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: They gotta come to Portland.
Speaker:Bill: more.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: That was the most moving thing to see. All these thousands and thousands of people doing…
Speaker:Dennis Collins: What sometimes we forget to do, and that is remember the fallen.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: And, so that was a very moving experience, and it's interesting that now you, as the CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: You have the duty of getting the word out, and hopefully a podcast like this and all the other things you do will help move that to get everybody that needs to be involved involved involved.
Speaker:Bill: I certainly hope so. Greg, I think you have…
Speaker:Craig Floyd: No.
Speaker:Bill: Put a shot at me.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: Right, you've touched on something in your comments a moment ago that always frustrated me. Here we have a beautiful national monument
Speaker:Craig Floyd: in Washington, D.C, honoring our fallen heroes in law enforcement. And then we added this National Law Enforcement Museum, which took 20 years to build. You would have thought that during that 20-year period, at least the officers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area would know
Speaker:Craig Floyd: that this museum was underway, and that eventually it opened. And yet that always frustrated me. A combination of the media not paying enough interest.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: To the importance of that museum. At opening, perhaps the, the coverage wasn't what we would have hoped for.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: And the word maybe didn't get out to the locals as well as it should have.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: But I'm interested in what you and your staff are doing to rectify that deficiency. I think we still have a lot of work to do. I hate it when I meet an officer in the Washington, D.C. area that says, oh, is there a museum for law enforcement? I wasn't aware of it.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: Is this getting better? Tell me what you think at this moment in time.
Speaker:Bill: Well, certainly, my hope is that it is getting better. The numbers are slowly moving in the right direction in terms of visitors, and most of it is by word of mouth, but we, of course, also have an advertising budget and a marketing budget, and we try to get the word out that way. There's a number of things on our side that we have been trying to do since I've been with the Memorial Fund over the last 3 years.
Speaker:Bill: Getting with the local tourism sector in Washington, in and around Washington, D.C, trying to get our brand and our message and the facility on many of the various things scattered throughout D.C., and some of that is actual, you know, infrastructure in D.C., like the signs that are dotted around D.C. that, sort of memorialize historic spots, and then they oftentimes have.
Speaker:Bill: verbiage or information about other interesting spots in and around DC. We've been pushing that. We've been, collaborating with the other museums in DC. There's a very… there's a working group that we periodically meet with there to, again, attach ourselves to those kinds of institutions.
Speaker:Bill: We work with our media partners, things like, Police One, trying to get articles written about the museum, what is going on at the museum, what are the latest exhibits, how can we sort of spread the word there.
Speaker:Bill: This, past year, this last August, we just concluded it. For a year, we ran an exhibit called Officers as Artists, where we sent out a call to officers across the nation and said, hey, we know that so many of you are involved in more than police work, and in many cases, you are artists in your own right. Send us your art, and we will display it in the museum, and it was a very, very compelling exhibit in
Speaker:Bill: the DuPont Gallery, showing
Speaker:Bill: I think, in a very real, visceral sense, the humanity of police officers.
Speaker:Bill: You know, from one piece to the next, you could see that the artwork was… sometimes it was focused on police work, but through the lens of police work, showing the humanity, showing the empathy, showing the care, to some degree, showing the trauma that officers face. But… and also, in equally a number of cases.
Speaker:Bill: completely separate from police work. Again.
Speaker:Bill: Looking at life through the lens of a man or woman who has seen the worst of society, and then trying to find a way to highlight or showcase the best in society. It was a very interesting juxtaposition, and every single person I talked to who went through the exhibit came away just completely blown away. Now, I know I just took a sidebar there.
Speaker:Bill: The real challenge for us as an institution, and I suspect you were dealing with this even from the earliest days, is that
Speaker:Bill: the museum as it exists today is a very, very compelling place. I mean, you go in there.
Speaker:Bill: You look at the exhibits through the lens of… there are a million places in the world where you can find someone who will talk about where and how and why the police department or police agencies or police officers did something wrong. But there should be a place in our country that tells the story of American law enforcement that documents and describes and highlights where law enforcement got it right. How I might argue law enforcement has been and continues to be just an overwhelming
Speaker:Bill: Overwhelming force of good for our country.
Speaker:Bill: And that is what the museum, I think, does just amazingly well. But…
Speaker:Bill: We are a museum in probably the most densely packed museum city in the world. If we're not number one in terms of Washington, D.C, we are certainly in the top 5.
Speaker:Bill: And the vast, vast majority of those museums are free to enter by virtue of the federal government providing a backstop and providing funding for many of those institutions. Think the Smithsonian, Air and Space, Natural History, on down the line. There are world-class institutions right around the corner from us
Speaker:Bill: That are very compelling, and have wide, broad interest levels, and here we are situated in Washington, D.C, and not only are we not free, but we are a paid experience. So it makes it very, very difficult for us to get on the radar of someone who's coming to Washington, D.C, perhaps the only time in their entire lives.
Speaker:Bill: The hypothetical family of four,
Speaker:Bill: And so, if you're triaging your list of things that you would like to go visit, cost is one of the things, and I know, as you know, we have been working now
Speaker:Bill: With, Representative Troy Nehls from Texas. He's introduced a bill in the House which would potentially get the memorialial Fund some federal funding to help make the museum free. In my mind, that right now is the biggest stumbling block. How can we make our experience
Speaker:Bill: free, and get people to come into the museum, recognizing that that has been one of the many barriers. Now, I could keep going on and on in many of these facts I know you know, but…
Speaker:Craig Floyd: but… but…
Speaker:Bill: The museum opened, and it was COVID happened, Yeah.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: That… that all these other museums… people think about the Smithsonian museums when they come to Washington, and they realize, oh, they're free.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: So of course they want to go to the Smithsonian Museums. What they don't understand is why they're free, and how they're able to be free, and that is because I think it's roughly 60% of their operational budget is funded by the federal government, by taxpayer dollars.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: And so many of the military museums that were built in Washington and other places received federal funding to get them built.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: the National Museum of the Marine Corps, for example, it's an item in the Marine Corps budget, a line item, that says, this is how much money we're going to give to the Museum of the Marine Corps so they can operate.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: they don't have to charge admission, because their operating budget is paid for by the United States Marine Corps. I mean, these are some of the facts that just always kind of unsettled me, because, you know, the National Law Enforcement Museum, a museum honoring the men and women in law enforcement in this country, are making the same sacrifices that those in the military do, and yet our museum
Speaker:Craig Floyd: did not get a penny from the federal government. All of the money to build it was raised privately, and now I love hearing that you have hope that maybe the United States Congress
Speaker:Craig Floyd: is going to provide funding so that you can perhaps operate on a free basis, and people can come and see that beautiful facility that we built. By the way, you mentioned the changing exhibition, the artists in law enforcement. I think the last time I was down there talking to you and some of your staff.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: There, there was something in the works, maybe, for the Beltway Sniper,
Speaker:Craig Floyd: serial killer case. Is that still happening? What's the next, planned exhibition in the DuPont Gallery?
Speaker:Bill: Yeah, that actually is happening. We're really excited about it. Of course.
Speaker:Bill: local people in and around D.C. will certainly know the story of the D.C. sniper, the two who were going all around the Washington, D.C. metro area and, firing on and killing people, seemingly at random.
Speaker:Bill: it completely locked down the Washington, D.C. area. I was a patrol officer in Prince George's County at the time, and we had a death in Prince George's County related to this case, so I was intimately familiar with the goings-on and how chaotic it became. It was absolutely astonishing to see people
Speaker:Bill: say, running to and from the gas station clerk, you know, literally running from their car to the inside of the store, theoretically, to avoid gunfire that might be coming in at any second. It was… it was almost surreal, but in part, we hope to tell a little bit of that story to give people a sense of not only how
Speaker:Bill: Outsized that event was, not just for our nation, but really for law enforcement. The number of agencies that had to come together across state and federal lines there, the cooperation amongst all of those partners, ultimately leading to the closure of the case and obviously the arrest of both men involved.
Speaker:Bill: It was just an astonishing story, and I think it serves as a really clear reminder and sort of a bellwether for everyone, perhaps many who haven't even heard or seen the story, how integral law enforcement has been to keeping our community safe, to restoring order, to preventing chaos, and…
Speaker:Bill: Those two snipers definitely created chaos in and around D.C., and it was only because of a huge, massive collaborative effort across so many agencies that ultimately those two men were stopped and arrested.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: So, Bill, can you give us a little tease on… I guess you already did, but this is something… and maybe we ought to pause for one second and make it really clear. There are two different things that you oversee.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: In Washington, D.C. One is behind you, in your background, it's the Law Enforcement Memorial, right? It is. And the other thing is what we were just talking about, the Law Enforcement Museum.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Okay?
Speaker:Dennis Collins: So, give us… you know, I'm gonna come to Washington, D.C. First time I've ever been there, let's say. You just gave me a reason to come to the museum.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Okay, and that is, you're going to have a special display on the Beltway Sniper, is that… did I get that right?
Speaker:Bill: We are, indeed. It will be in the DuPont Gallery, which of course means nothing to most people, but it's a big, side-sectioned-off part of the museum. It will be a really big space, and we're going to hopefully really
Speaker:Bill: really tell the story in a way that has an emotional impact. We'll have the actual vehicle that, Malvo and they, they were driving around in, they used as a sniper platform. Of course, we'll have video and audio, and trying to tell many parts of a very disparate and extensive story. So yes, that will be an exam.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Give us a little more of a tease, then. That is great, it's soon to come, but why should I, as a tourist who's coming to Washington, D.C, why should I put the law enforcement museum on my itinerary? Give us a quick sales pitch.
Speaker:Bill: Well, as you noted, the Memorial Fund encompasses both the memorialial and the museum, so I think, all things being equal, any citizen of this country, anyone who is lucky enough to call this country home, you have, in my view, an obligation to come pay tribute to, to come help us remember
Speaker:Bill: the men and women who have died serving this country in some law enforcement capacity across the last 250 years. Because without them and probably their deaths, the lives that we live today would certainly not be possible. So I think every citizen coming to D.C. should make a stop here at the National Law Enforcement Memorial.
Speaker:Bill: It is an incredibly compelling and moving
Speaker:Bill: Sometimes peaceful, sometimes cathartic experience, certainly for survivors, people who knew the men and women whose names are on the wall, it is a very emotional stop. But I think all of us as citizens of this country have an obligation to come here at least once. So if you're coming to D.C., please come to the memorialial. Literally, right across the street,
Speaker:Bill: Literally right across the street from the memorialial is the National Law Enforcement Museum, and it, again, is where we try to tell the story of American law enforcement. I referenced earlier that there are lots of places in the world, in the country, where you can go and learn about how, why, where police officers may have made a mistake or maybe got something wrong. That is not the National Law Enforcement Museum as we have set it up today. The museum exists today.
Speaker:Bill: to tell the positive, amazing story of American law enforcement over the last 250 years. Not that men and women in uniform can't or don't make mistakes again, not that agencies don't have room to grow or improve, but if you just look at the body of work by men and women in uniform over those last 250 years, you just come away completely convinced that, on balance, law enforcement has been and continues to be just an overwhelming force for
Speaker:Bill: good.
Speaker:Bill: And so, it is individual stories combined into larger stories, showcasing the various parts of many police organizations, whether that moves all the way from 911 dispatch to K-9 officers to SWAT teams, to investigations. There are parts of the museum that'll tell you about and teach you about crime scene investigation, and fingerprints, and latent evidence discovery.
Speaker:Bill: We have a driving simulator, we have a use of force simulator, where you can, for a momentary part of time, you can be a police officer and interact with people on screen as they are, perhaps having the worst moments of their lives. How do you respond to that? There's nothing in my mind that gives people such a visceral.
Speaker:Bill: Feel and reaction to how fast things occur in the real world.
Speaker:Bill: that a man or woman in uniform is standing there, and in the blink of an eye, they are forced to make a decision that could end someone else's life. It's very, very tough, and it somehow becomes easier when you're sitting in the climate-controlled environment of your home office, looking at it on the computer, and you can stop frame by frame on some YouTube video that's been uploaded. But I promise you, when you're standing in front of the screen, and you have to react right now.
Speaker:Bill: Based only on what you know over the previous 30 seconds.
Speaker:Bill: it is a very, very real eye-opener for members of the public to come through with that. So, those are just a few of the highlights. It really is an incredibly moving and compelling experience. Of course, I know I'm biased, and I know I'm preaching to the choir and you and Craig, but everyone who has even the slightest interest in law enforcement, even if you don't have any interest or connection to law enforcement, I promise you, you will come away from the museum having learned something new
Speaker:Bill: about law enforcement that I think will widen and open your eyes to what actually goes on the street, and how much of a sacrifice it is for the men and women who.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: Hey, Dennis. Dennis, I just wanted to say that after you heard Bill speak in May at the National Police Week events, and hearing him just now, I think you understand why I have such great confidence in his leadership of the National Law Enforcement Officers.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: He is not one of those laissez-faire leaders. I'd say he's kind of involved in this.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: Yeah, he's, he's…
Speaker:Dennis Collins: I'm a bit passionate about.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: of his passion. A bit passionate.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: I love his passion. You know, when we built that museum, and he captured it in his words, we wanted to try to make sure we had a balance between the walk in a shoes of a police officer experience, using the interactive technology to allow visitors to see what it's like to really be a cop in America, and how difficult and dangerous it can be, but also how rewarding it can be.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: But we balance that with the history of law enforcement, with thousands of artifacts that the museum has collected over the years. I think the number now is over 25,000 artifacts that help to tell that story. And one of my favorite parts of that museum
Speaker:Craig Floyd: was that we were able to tell the story of the men and women whose names are on the memorialial across the street. You know, everybody visits that memorial, they see line after line of names, and they realize, oh, these are the names of officers who've died in the line of duty. There's now, what, Bill, 24,412 names, I think I have that right, on that.
Speaker:Bill: And that's the exact number, and we're getting ready to add 363 new names. So, at the conclusion of this spring, there will be 24,785, I think the math works out to.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: That's sad, and yet it's bittersweet in that they're getting the honor they deserve.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: And have earned through their sacrifice, but it's lives that have been devastated because of their loss.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: But I love the fact that you can go into the Hall of Remembrance at the National Law Enforcement Museum and see the photographs of the fallen, but also, you can tell the stories behind these men and women. Colleagues, friends, family members can leave tributes, tell you something that we should know about that officer. Not how they died, per se, but how they lived.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: And that's such an important part of the experience. But now you've touched on something, and I think, Dennis, it's worth maybe moving the discussion to the other pillar of the memorialial Fund, which is officer safety and wellness. And I love the fact that you guys have continued these great programs.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Police Week is coming up in May of 2026. Give our audience a little heads up on the dates, and give them some reasons why they should show up for Police Week.
Speaker:Bill: Well, we mentioned it earlier in the conversation, but I think everyone who is in law enforcement, no matter how tangentially related, if you have any degree of connection to law enforcement, you owe it to yourself to come to at least one police week in Washington, D.C. Absolutely. You've never seen or heard anything like it. There is an emotional resonance in the air that you could cut with a knife.
Speaker:Bill: It is absolutely indescribable what occurs in and around Washington, D.C. during Police Week. The dates this year mirror those dates of almost every other year. It's roughly May 11th through May 16th.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: Right. The Police Unity Tour rides in on every May 12th.
Speaker:Bill: The Police Unity Tour, for those who don't know, is the largest contributor and donor to the memorialial itself. Without them, we would not be able to maintain the memorialial. On May 13th is our signature tentpole event. It's the Candlelight Vigil. This year will be the 38th annual Candlelight Vigil.
Speaker:Bill: And I have to, just as an aside, even now, even today, even when I'm up on the stage, I still hear the voice of Craig Floyd in my mind. It's so integrated, so… because I've had so many candlelight vigils before, and Craig's voice is so distinctive.
Speaker:Bill: But the Candlelight Vigil is where we memorialize, honor, and read aloud the names of the men and women most recently added to the memorialial. So again, that number that we're getting ready to add right here in the spring is 363 names, so we'll read aloud those names. There will literally be thousands and thousands of police officers, colleagues, peers, and importantly, family, the survivors of these very same men and women.
Speaker:Bill: Do not feel like you can only come to this if you are somehow connected to law enforcement. This is a public event. I can't… I can't implore the citizens of this country enough. Come to a police week, and importantly, come to a candlelight vigil and feel and see for yourself the visceral, the emotional, the incredible impact
Speaker:Bill: every single one of these lives represents. It's more than a single thread in the sort of fabric of our community when these men and women die. It's something far more than that, and it just leaves a crater in the community and the lives of the people they leave behind.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: So tell us, where is the candlelight vigil? Because it's in a very special place, and it's very accessible to the public.
Speaker:Bill: Every single year, it's on the National Mall, so come to D.C., come to our museum, but importantly, go to Police Week and the… right on the National Mall, in between all of the museums, the Smithsonian, it's open to the public. This year, our pad currently is slated to be right next to adjacent to 7th Street, so it'll be Jefferson and 7th, but you can't miss us. If you just go to the National Mall, there will be literally tens of thousands of people there to help us.
Speaker:Dennis Collins: honor and celebrate and remember these men and women.
Speaker:Bill: Bill, if people want more information about Police Week events, or if they want to maybe support the Memorial Fund, which I highly encourage it, you survive on private donations, like every nonprofit.
Speaker:Craig Floyd: No federal dollars, as we've talked about. Tell people where they can go to get more information and how they can support.
Speaker:Bill: They can go to our website, that's the easiest way. The web address is NLEMF.org, that stands for National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, N-L-E-O-M-F.org. You can both donate there, if something here has resonated with you today, as Craig has mentioned, we have never in our history received so much as a penny from a federal, state, or local government.
Speaker:Bill: We have survived, we have thrived, we are continuing to grow by virtue of very generous
Speaker:Bill: donors from all across the country. We could not do this work in terms of honoring police officers or telling their stories without the support of so many from across the country. So please, if you have any charitable dollars in your budget, I hope you'll consider us amongst the many other worthy contenders.
