COLUSA, CA (MPG) – By this time next year, the Colusa County Historic Courthouse could be lit up in blue to serve as a solemn tribute to local law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
Colusa County Supervisor Merced Corona, whose own daughter, Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona, was shot and killed while working a traffic incident on Jan. 10, 2019, is leading a volunteer effort to finance and construct a local Fallen Peace Officer Memorial near the courthouse garden to honor Colusa County’s fallen officers, among them a young sheriff’s deputy Corona knew when he had just entered the department.
Deputy Michael W. McClung, 23, of Williams, was killed July 2, 1984, after being hit by a train while on patrol near Myers Road. He died instantly.
McClung left behind a wife and 8-month-old-son.
Corona said he approached the Board of Supervisors in 2024 about the need for a local memorial and had hoped it would be further along in time to observe Peace Officer Memorial Day on May 15.
“What is holding us up right now is trying to get our own (nonprofit) status so we can start accepting donations,” Corona said Tuesday, the day after the State of California honored its fallen officers.
California Peace Officer Memorial Week is customarily observed during the first weekend in May. The annual two-day event began with a ceremony and candlelight vigil at the California Peace Officers’ Memorial Monument in Sacramento on May 4, and concluded Monday with a caravan of law enforcement officers departing the California Highway Patrol headquarters through communities to show unity and solidarity.
Corona said a local memorial and an annual ceremony to honor Colusa County’s fallen peace officers is long overdue, although the names of each of the fallen are included on the California Peace Officers’ Memorial Monument at the State Capital.
No local peace officer – living or serving in Colusa County at the time of their death – has been killed in the line of duty since Natalie Corona six years ago.
Officer Corona, 22, left behind her parents and three younger sisters. Her name was added to the California Peace Officer Memorial in Capitol Park, Sacramento, and the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington D.C. in 2020.
The others who will be honored on the local memorial will include two killed in the 19th century.
Colusa County Sheriff’s Deputy John A. McClain, 38, was killed on Sept. 27, 1870, in a shootout while serving an eviction notice on squatters in the Antelope Valley, west of Maxwell. He was shot in the head and died instantly. McClain left a wife and four children.
Colusa Town Marshal John T. Arnold, 30, was shot and killed on March 2, 1878, at a store on Market and Fifth streets (Odd Fellows Building) by former District Attorney Dudley Shepardson. Shepardson, who was later acquitted of murder, shot Arnold four times as Arnold approached him to serve a misdemeanor warrant. Arnold had been a local peace officer for 10 years. He left a wife and two children.
Colusa Town Marshal Jasper Newton Scroggins, 60, was shot and killed trying to take an ex-con into custody on April 18, 1919, in a barn that was located on the corner of Bridge and Webster streets.
Scroggins, who was a Colusa peace officer for 23 years, left a wife and two adult children. His killer, Thomas Woods, spent the rest of his life in prison.
Game Warden Leon H. Nelson, 36, of Colusa, was killed on Oct. 27, 1979, while on patrol for poachers in the Mendocino National Forest.
Nelson died when his vehicle rolled off the side of the steep forest highway that runs between Colusa and Glenn counties. He left a wife and four children.
In addition to being recognized at the Peace Officer Memorial at the State Capitol, which was dedicated on May 13, 1988, the names of all Colusa County’s fallen officers are permanently recorded on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial to commemorate their service and sacrifice.