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May 16, 2008 7:54 am US/Central
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Officer Remembered 70 Years After Being Shot
(WCCO)
Fallen officers who died in the line of duty are being remembered at the State Capitol.
A candlelight vigil was held Thursday evening at the Law Enforcement Memorial in St. Paul.
Earlier this week: Minneapolis Park Police officer Mark Bedard was added to the national wall in Washington, D.C.
He died while chasing a suspect last year.
Also added to that wall was an officer who died back in 1936 during a break-in.
Someone shot Arnold Borson as he tried to stop a burglary in the southwestern Minnesota town of Ghent.
It is a forgotten story, and many are happy it will finally be remembered.
For more then 70 years, the only memorial for Arnold Borson was a family plot about a half mile from Ghent, where he was the town's only police officer.
The police department is now gone but the spot where Borson was shot still stands.
It's an empty store front -- a memory Mildred DeCramer remembers well.
DeCramer was only 12 at the time of the shooting.
"It's something I'll never forget," she said.
It was 3 a.m. and the alarm rang in her dad's shop just around the corner. Her father grabbed a gun, his brother-in-law and Borson -- who lived down the street.
According to newspaper reports during that time, one man jumped out the window and Mildred's dad shot at him. Borson caught the other man.
"Arnold was holding him at gunpoint, and he said to Arnold, 'Look, my buddy is on the street is dying.' And Arnold turned his head and as he did that he shot him in the neck," said DeCramer.
Borson was taken to a hospital in Marshall, Minn. before he was transferred to the Mayo Clinic, where he died four days after he was shot.
"People were frightened too, because at first these two burglars were not apprehended -- they got away," said Jan Louwagie, from SW State University.
The church at the Borson funeral was packed with people there to console his mother and wife, who were left behind.
Months later a local man stood trial. DeCramer's dad and uncle identified him as the shooter, but after 19 hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted.
"He was a free man. They just let him go," said Louwagie.
"I know it bothered my dad a lot, an awful lot, because he loved Arnold," said DeCramer.
Those still living that remember Borson can share his story across Minnesota and the rest of the country.
"It's wonderful, wonderful -- he deserves it," said DeCramer.
Borson's grand-nephew is a police officer in Colorado and when he found out his great uncle's name wasn't on the national memorial he did the research and the work to get it included. He told WCCO-TV that it was an honor.
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