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Ronald Pitt Jr. has pretty much given up hope that one day he might still see justice for his policeman father, gunned down in the line of duty.
It’s been 58 years since Pitt’s father, Morrisburg police Const. Ronald Pitt, was shot as he chased car thieves. Pitt was shot twice in the chest, with one of the bullets lodging in his spine. It would be a fatal shot. Two months after the shooting, with infection set in, Pitt died in a Montreal hospital. The killers were never caught, and Pitt suspects the men responsible will never be known.
“I don’t even think they’d be alive now, whoever has done it,” said Pitt.
Now Pitt has returned to Morrisburg from Scotland to be there on Friday when the OPP officially rename the Hwy. 31 bridge that spans Hwy. 401 in his father’s honour. It is the latest memorial for the officer, who 12 years ago received a memorial plaque and display in the Morrisburg OPP detachment after investigators re-opened his case in a last-ditch effort to track the killers.
Pitt, who was in Scotland with his mother and younger brother when his father was shot in 1957 and returned there in the years after his father’s death, said he was delighted when he received an email from the OPP asking for his permission to use his father’s name on the bridge.
The dedication ceremony was scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at the Morrisburg Legion. OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes and other dignitaries were expected to attend.
“Morrisburg has done quite a lot for my father and the memory of him,” said Pitt, a 65-year-old retired paramedic. “I was surprised and happy that this is getting done.”
Pitt suspects it will be his last visit to Canada. His first trip was as a seven-year-old in the weeks after his father was shot, travelling from their home with his mother Margaret and younger brother Ian. His father had come to Canada ahead of his family, and had been a Morrisburg police officer for only six weeks when he was shot.
A photo from the Morrisburg Leader newspaper shows a seven-year-old Ronald Pitt Jr., his mother Margaret and brother Ian visiting their father, Const. Ronald Pitt, in hospital in 1957.
Pitt’s memories of his father are vague. He remembers him lying in the hospital bed. Pitt said his dad was a strict and tough man who insisted his son behave himself and be polite.
He often thinks about what life may have been like if he had grown up with a father. His younger brother Ian committed suicide at age 17 after the family returned to Scotland.
“I can put a lot of trouble there at the door of what happened to my father. When we went back to Scotland my mother remarried and things were a wee bit difficult,” he said.
Pitt said he and his wife intended to visit his father’s gravesite one final time during their visit.
aseymour@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/andrew_seymour
查看原文...
It’s been 58 years since Pitt’s father, Morrisburg police Const. Ronald Pitt, was shot as he chased car thieves. Pitt was shot twice in the chest, with one of the bullets lodging in his spine. It would be a fatal shot. Two months after the shooting, with infection set in, Pitt died in a Montreal hospital. The killers were never caught, and Pitt suspects the men responsible will never be known.
“I don’t even think they’d be alive now, whoever has done it,” said Pitt.
Now Pitt has returned to Morrisburg from Scotland to be there on Friday when the OPP officially rename the Hwy. 31 bridge that spans Hwy. 401 in his father’s honour. It is the latest memorial for the officer, who 12 years ago received a memorial plaque and display in the Morrisburg OPP detachment after investigators re-opened his case in a last-ditch effort to track the killers.
Pitt, who was in Scotland with his mother and younger brother when his father was shot in 1957 and returned there in the years after his father’s death, said he was delighted when he received an email from the OPP asking for his permission to use his father’s name on the bridge.
The dedication ceremony was scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at the Morrisburg Legion. OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes and other dignitaries were expected to attend.
“Morrisburg has done quite a lot for my father and the memory of him,” said Pitt, a 65-year-old retired paramedic. “I was surprised and happy that this is getting done.”
Pitt suspects it will be his last visit to Canada. His first trip was as a seven-year-old in the weeks after his father was shot, travelling from their home with his mother Margaret and younger brother Ian. His father had come to Canada ahead of his family, and had been a Morrisburg police officer for only six weeks when he was shot.
A photo from the Morrisburg Leader newspaper shows a seven-year-old Ronald Pitt Jr., his mother Margaret and brother Ian visiting their father, Const. Ronald Pitt, in hospital in 1957.
Pitt’s memories of his father are vague. He remembers him lying in the hospital bed. Pitt said his dad was a strict and tough man who insisted his son behave himself and be polite.
He often thinks about what life may have been like if he had grown up with a father. His younger brother Ian committed suicide at age 17 after the family returned to Scotland.
“I can put a lot of trouble there at the door of what happened to my father. When we went back to Scotland my mother remarried and things were a wee bit difficult,” he said.
Pitt said he and his wife intended to visit his father’s gravesite one final time during their visit.
aseymour@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/andrew_seymour
查看原文...
