{"id":240100,"date":"2025-09-19T23:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T23:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240100\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T23:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T23:45:11","slug":"fallen-philadelphia-police-officer-lauretha-vaird-honored-in-street-renaming-ceremony-in-feltonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240100\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallen Philadelphia Police Officer Lauretha Vaird honored in street renaming ceremony in Feltonville"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it came time to unveil a new street sign honoring a Philadelphia Police Officer killed in the line of duty<\/a> nearly 30 years ago, things didn’t go as planned.<\/p>\n

There was a slight snag; the banner over the sign got stuck, which the family of fallen Officer Lauretha Vaird said would have made her smile.<\/p>\n

After a few tries, an officer unveiled the plaque, which is fixed high above Rising Sun and Wyoming in the city’s Feltonville neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Officer Vaird, a single mother of two, responded to a bank robbery on Jan. 2, 1996. She was shot and killed. She is the first female Philadelphia police officer to be killed in the line of duty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her family, including son, Michael Caesar, were here outside the very bank where she was killed for the unveiling.<\/p>\n

“She ran into that bank and, in the face of adversity and danger, she did what she had to do, which she paid the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “And that’s what today is, today is an honor…for her legacy and her memory. So that people will always see who she was.”<\/p>\n

“Our cops who are here today need to know the why,” said Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel. “Every one of them runs the potential to lose their lives. But if they know, 30 years later, they’re still being remembered, that gives them something to say it has purpose.”<\/p>\n

Officer Vaird’s family said they had to be persistent and fight for this day.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a long time coming and I appreciate it,” said Caesar. “I’m glad they finally gave it to us. We had to fight but we fought, we don’t give up, just like my mother didn’t.”<\/p>\n

Three men were convicted of Vaird’s murder. Two are behind bars for life. A third sits on death row.<\/p>\n

Bethel said the sign is a reminder of the dedication of those on the force.<\/p>\n

“I’m just so damn proud of them, of what they do every day and I just want people to be just as proud of them,” he said. “We ain’t perfect, but we sure as hell given our heart to this job and to this city.<\/p>\n

Joe Holden<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Holden came home to join the CBS News Philadelphia team as a general assignment reporter in May, 2016. In August 2018 he became anchor of the weekend evening editions and Philly57.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it came time to unveil a new street sign honoring a Philadelphia Police Officer killed in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":240101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,718,128428,12631,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-240100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-feltonville","11":"tag-north-philadelphia","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115233628058362518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}