Sara Meyer is going to Washington, D.

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

Sara Meyer is going to Washington, D.C., to see her husband’s name etched in stone.

She is dreading it.

"This was supposed to be our year," she recalled. "Everything was going to happen the way we planned. It was going to be the best year of our lives."

A week ago, she went to Bayport, where the death of her husband and 281 other police officers in Minnesota history are on a list. Her husband’s is the latest to be added to the list.

"It was overwhelming. I knew it would be very emotional before I went, but I didn’t know how much until I was there," the young widow said.

Later this week, she will attend another memorial ceremony Friday in Austin, where her husband’s name will be etched in stone on yet another wall dedicated to police officers killed in the line of duty.

"It’s nice that they’re doing this, but it’s so hard for me to keep going over what happened. I don’t know …," said the widow, her voice trailing off into silence.

Jason B. Meyer was killed in the line of duty at the age of 28.

Gestures at the national level as well as state and local levels will honor all police officers who gave their lives in the performance of their duties.

The National Peace Officers Memorial Day is Wednesday in Washington, D.C., and the name of a part-time Grand Meadow Police Department officer, only 28 years old, will be among those of fallen police officers.

Gary Schroeder, who replaced Meyer on the Grand Meadow police force, will escort the widow to the memorial in the nation’s capital.

Chapter No. 105 of Rochester of the Fraternal Order of Police and the city of Grand Meadow is paying the expenses for the trip.

"Every day something reminds me of Jason," said Jim Richardson, Grand Meadow’s chief of police. "I can’t forget him."

Richardson hired Meyer to work for the city of Grand Meadow.

"He always wanted to learn more on the job," Richardson said. "Being a police officer is what he wanted to do in life and he always wanted to know more so he could do the job better."

"He enjoyed the challenge of the job," Richardson said. "There are so many unknowns about the job. There is so much routine until all of a sudden that changes and you have to make possibly a life-saving decision immediately."

"Jason Meyer exemplified a big, caring guy, who could make a decision fast and wanted to work in law enforcement to help others," Richardson said.

Sara Foss grew up at Glenville in a family of three daughters and one son.

"We met at the Aquarius Club in Rochester," the widow said. "I liked him from the start."

Jason’s mother, Joyce, is a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester. He came from a family of three boys and one girl and was the only member of his family to pursue a career in law enforcement.

Sara and Jason dated for a year and then married Sept. 10, 1994.

Jason went to school to become a certified peace officer in Minnesota. Had he lived, he would have been among the Riverland Community College graduates last Thursday.

"He was just a sweet guy," Sara said. "He would do anything for anybody. He was big, way over 6 feet tall, but he was so easy going. I never worried about anything happening to him when he went to work. I didn’t worry because he was a smart guy."

Late in the evening of Sept. 6, 1999, Jason and his wife Sara were talking at Glynn’s Motor Mart in Grand Meadow. She was on the way to their Spring Valley apartment and he was on duty.

All of a sudden, the calm Labor Day evening changed and the part-time police officer received a radio request to back up a Mower County sheriff’s deputy investigating a prowler call in nearby Racine.

Jason sped off into the night. Moments later, his wife drove away, too.

According to Mower County Sheriff Barry J. Simonson, another call for help came from the Fillmore County Sheriff’s Department at about the same time. Fillmore County deputies were in pursuit of a vehicle.

Meyer apparently attempted to turn his squad car to help intercept the vehicle being pursued on Highway 63 west of Spring Valley.

He lost control of the vehicle, while turning from Highway 16 onto U.S. Highway 63.

Possibly the second vehicle to stop at the scene of the accident was that of his wife.

She saw the police car along the roadside, slowed down and drove past before stopping. Then, she turned around and returned to the scene.

"I didn’t think anything was wrong at first," she said. "I mean, you see police cars parked along the side of the road all the time. Then something told me I should stop."

It was her husband’s car and he was in it. A Gold Cross Ambulance Service crew took him to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, where he died.

The place where the young officer died now has a different kind of memorial. His widow and her family as well as his own have adopted a portion of the highway.

This spring, the relatives spent a Saturday, walking the roadside ditches for 2 1/2 miles picking up trash.

Sara was out there, too. She still is on leave of absence from her job as senior designer at the J.C. Penney Style Salon at Apache Mall in Rochester.

"It seemed kind of odd walking around where it happened," she said of the cleanup detail.

But, who knows. It could be part of the healing process.

Organizers of this week’s National Peace Officers Memorial Day events, which include a visit by President Clinton Wednesday, consider it important for widows and other surviving relatives of fallen officers in order to help rebuild their shattered lives.

Mower County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Anderson as well as his wife Gayle and their daughters escorted the widow to the Bayport memorial services.

Sheriff’s Deputy John Bachman and this week Grand Meadow police officer Schroeder also are assisting the woman.

"Everybody has been awesome," Sara said. "My family and Jason’s family, but most of all the guys in law enforcement. They haven’t forgotten me."

In her Spring Valley apartment, Sara has a shrine to her husband. It is a gun cabinet he built and now it contains a letter from President Clinton, the fallen officer’s badge, jacket, the Medal of Honor conferred by the American Police Hall of Fame and other uniform insignias, plus the flag that flew over his grave in Hamilton Cemetery near Racine. In addition, there is a letter of appreciation from LifeService, signifying the fallen officer’s status as an organ donor.

"I would like everybody to know that my husband died doing what he loved doing best of all in life and that was being a police officer," she said.

"Every day there is the potential for something bad to happen," Sheriff Simonson said. "Even when you pull over a car at a traffic stop you never know what can happen in an instant.

"There are domestic disputes that can flare in an instant into dangerous incidents, too.

"Officer safety is of the utmost importance to all of us, but, according to the statistics, more officers are killed in the line of duty, because of accidents than anything else. This was one of those horrible examples of that," he said of the Grand Meadow officer’s death, the first in more than 50 years in Mower County.

"I hope going to the national memorial will help Sara," Grand Meadow Chief Richardson said. "I hope the memorial can help her with healing."

"I think society can take police officers for granted," he went on to say. "But, you know, I’m it. The police officer is all we got between the good guys and the bad guys, law and order.

"Police officers do this because they love the job. You become addicted to it.

"That’s what Jason Meyer was all about. That’s who he was. He was someone who wanted to make things right.

"I constantly think about him still."