First slain Las Vegas police officer honored by daughter at memorial

By Kyle B. Hansen

Thursday, May 20, 2010 | 11:54 p.m.

Marjorie May Waggoner remembers in vivid detail the night her father, a police officer, was killed, and telling the story still brings tears, even though it was 77 years ago.

Waggoner’s father, Ernest James May, was the first Las Vegas police officer killed in the line of duty, on June 8, 1933.

May was one of 28 Southern Nevada law enforcement officers honored at an annual ceremony Thursday evening at Police Memorial Park. Waggoner participated by placing a flower in a bouquet for her father.

“You’ll never know how proud I am to be here and to represent my noble, honorable father,” she said after the memorial. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful ceremony.”

May had only been a police officer for about 18 months, Waggoner said, and her mother begged him to take a different job because it was too dangerous.

“But he loved police force work,” she said.

Waggoner, now 86, was just 9 years old when a man who had been drinking threatened to shoot the first officer he saw. May was the first officer to arrive on the scene.

Waggoner remembers her uncle Joe, who was the constable, coming to their ranch to tell her mother the news. Her mom was left to provide for seven children, ranging from 15 years to just 6 weeks old.

Unlike when an officer is killed today, Waggoner said, her family was not very well taken care of by the community and struggled to survive the Great Depression.

“My mother had it tough,” she said. “If he’d been killed on the railroad, we’d been taken care of. But he wasn’t.”

Sherriff Doug Gillespie promised such a thing would never happen today.

“Know in your hearts that this community supports you in everything you do,” Gillespie said to the officers present for the ceremony. “Know in your hearts that if you have to make that ultimate sacrifice, that this community truly will step up and support and provide guidance to your loved ones.”

Gillespie promised that Metro would continue to honor those who have given their lives.

“Each and every year we will return and we will give that respect to members in our profession that they so rightly deserve,” he said.

Waggoner, remembering trips to the Colorado River and playing in the alfalfa on their Charleston Boulevard ranch, said, “We had the best dad anybody could have.”

She tries to come to Las Vegas for the memorial every few years but said this is likely the last year she would be able to make the trip from her home in Clearfield, Utah, north of Salt Lake City.

“I’m just so grateful for such a beautiful, fitting ceremony,” she said. “I wish mother could be here; I know her spirit’s here.”