In 1890 two gangs of cattle thieves, the so-called Socorro gang and the Tularosa gang, were wreaking havoc on the herds of ranchers in the southern region of what was then the Territory of New Mexico. The ranchers asked the regional prosecutor, Col. Albert J. Fountain for assistance.

By 1894, Colonel Fountain and his investigators had put the Socorro gang out of business and its leader in jail. That left the Tularosa gang.

In 1895 Colonel Fountain had amassed enough evidence to indict the two leaders of the Tularosa gang, Oliver Lee and William McNew. So in January 1896, Colonel Fountain, traveling with his eight-year-old son, Henry, went to the town of Lincoln to present the evidence to the grand jury, which indicted Lee and McNew on a total of 32 counts, charging larceny of cattle and defacing brands. On January 30, Colonel Fountain and Henry loaded a buckboard and headed for home in Las Cruces, more than 100 miles away.

They never made it.

A search party later found a large pool of blood and personal effects of young Henry Fountain, covered with blood. Other search parties found the horses that had been pulling Colonel Fountain’s buckboard and later the buckboard itself, with a considerable amount of dried blood on its left side and some of the colonel’s papers scattered on the ground. The bodies of Colonel Fountain and his son were never found, but it was obvious that both had been murdered by the cattle rustlers.

Public records do not indicate who was the first American prosecutor killed in the line of duty, but certainly Colonel Fountain was one of the first. Sadly, there have been too many others since then—so many, in fact that Dan Alsobrooks decided that one of his primary goals as president of NDAA in 2002-2003 would be the establishment of a Prosecutors Memorial honoring these true heroes. He named former NDAA President Bob Johnson of Anoka County, Minnesota, to chair a committee to explore the potential support and possible designs and location for such a memorial.

During his official travels, the president discovered that this idea struck a responsive chord with prosecutors and prosecutors’ associations across the country.

With the NDAA Board of Directors’ approval last month of an artist and a design, the project is now underway. The Prosecutors Memorial, honoring all prosecutors, local and federal, who gave their lives in serving their jurisdictions, will become a reality by the end of this year. It will occupy a prominent location at the Ernest F. Hollings National Advocacy Center on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

At a time when the image of prosecutors has been smudged by misleading reports in the media, as well as by irresponsible attacks by some defense attorneys and other misguided critics, the creation of a Prosecutors Memorial is particularly timely and appropriate. It will remind Americans that in playing a unique and critical role in their communities—seeking justice, assisting victims and protecting public safety—prosecutors assume risks that include their personal safety and sometimes their very lives.

As Dan Alsobrooks observed in one of his commentaries in this magazine, “Prosecutors don’t think of themselves as heroes. We tend to respond to praise, criticism, and yes, danger, by saying ‘I’m just doing my job.’ In fact, most of us would consider it the highest compliment if people said of us, ‘You just did your job.’”

According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, 41 percent of prosecutors’ offices reported a work-related threat against staff members, who were “just doing their job.” These statistics included one of our board members, Susan Gaertner, county attorney of Ramsey County, Minnesota (St. Paul). As she reported, in a profile published in the July/August issue of The Prosecutor: “I’ve had my tires slashed and my life threatened and I certainly am not unusual in that respect. I think that every one of us (prosecutors) understands that our personal safety is one of the risks we take in our jobs.”

Three years ago, as Don Buring, a Kentucky prosecutor, was leaving the funeral of a colleague, Fred Capps, who had been shot to death in his home by a criminal he was scheduled to prosecute the same day, he said that Capps’s widow Cathy, had told him to “stay safe.” Buring said the problem is that he and other prosecutors aren’t sure how to do that, since they live with threats against their lives and their families.

Paul R. McLaughlin, a Boston prosecutor on special assignment with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, lived with that threat, and ultimately lost his life. He was ambushed and shot to death on Sept. 25, 1995, by a career criminal whom he was to prosecute for the third time as McLaughlin left a suburban commuter train and walked to his car.

“Before Paul R. McLaughlin,” wrote a Boston Herald columnist, “we never imagined a lawyer dying in the line of duty. That was the province of soldiers, cops and firefighters…until an assassin stepped out of the bushes near a commuter train and changed all that forever.”

That columnist was not alone in never imagining a prosecutor, the people’s lawyer, dying, as a Boston police homicide captain said of McLaughlin, “for doing the right thing.”

It is not only because of tragedies like these, Bob Johnson says, that he sees the Prosecutors Memorial as a visible reminder that “prosecutors are always at risk. They’re always working in a profession that brings them into contact with evil people,” he declares. “They accept this risk and move forward to protect the public. So this is not only a tribute to those who have died in the line of duty, but a recognition of those who continue to accept this risk every day and nevertheless move forward to serve the public interest.”

Too often an inspired idea gets lost through lack of commitment and follow-through. But not this one. The credit goes to Dan Alsobrooks for conceiving the idea of a Prosecutors Memorial and seeing it through to final approval by the NDAA board, and also to Bob Johnson, who chaired both the Memorial Committee and its Art Selection Committee, and members of those two committees. Credit, too, is due those prosecutors and state prosecutors’ associations around the country that expressed their support with contributions.

In another era and circumstance, the British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote:

The tumult and the shouting dies,
The Captains and the Kings depart,
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
A humble and contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

To the thousands of prosecutors and members of the visiting public who view the Prosecutors Memorial in the years to come and contemplate its meaning, the memorial will ensure that those colleagues who gave their lives in the service of their communities will never be forgotten. Hopefully it will also serve as a public reminder of the awesome burdens and constant risks borne by all prosecutors—yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s.