OPP Dedicate Another Bridge To A Fallen Officer

"It provides a permanent memory to our officers"

Another highway bridge will be dedicated today in honour of a fallen Ontario Provincial Police officer.

Constable George Bennett died in February 1980 when the snowmobile he was patrolling on hit a rock and was thrown from the sled.

OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes will dedicate the bridge over Highway 11 at Burnside Line/West Street in Orillia in Constable Bennett’s honour. Bennett had been an OPP officer for just five years. He had transferred from Metropolitan Toronto Police in 1975, serving with the Brechin Detachment before transferring to Orillia in June 1976.

OPP Sergeant Peter Leon says these dedications, more than 50 of them, are important to the men and women of the OPP, “It provides a permanent memory to our officers. Many of the officers that are being remembered tragically gave their lives decades ago. And it’s something each and every citizen of Ontario, when they pass over or under one of these superstructures, that they will remember the sacrifice that these officers did in fact make.”

Leon says OPP hope to make another bridge dedication in Central Region this fall. At that point, he says, all fallen officers in Central Region will have been remembered.