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Mural at 24th District station honors two fallen officers

Family members of Sgts. Stephen Liczbinski and Timothy Simpson, and officers from their former police district, gathered yesterday to remember the two fallen officers at the unveiling of a mural in their honor.

Family members of Sgts. Stephen Liczbinski and Timothy Simpson, and officers from their former police district, gathered yesterday to remember the two fallen officers at the unveiling of a mural in their honor.

"There isn't a day we walk around these hallways when we don't talk about them or think of them," said Capt. Dan Castro, of the 24th District, headquartered at Whitaker Avenue near Erie.

Under the title "24th District Fallen Heroes," the mural depicts the archangel Michael emerging from a police badge overlooking the Philadelphia skyline as the sun rises. Photographs of the two officers are also featured on the wall.

The mural resides in a hallway where the district's officers gather daily before and after roll call.

"Murals are a wonderful way of holding on to these officers' memories," said Jane Golden, the executive director of the Mural Arts Program, which helped produce the mural.

"It's our way of showing support to the families."

Muralist Greg Prestegord played a large role in the project and was able to "bring the vision to fruition," Golden said.

"I wanted [the angel] to rise above the city as if he were protecting it," Prestegord said of his work.

"The mural is a way of showing that they'll always be part of this district," Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said prior to the dedication.

Ramsey said that it was appropriate that the mural linked Liczbinski and Simpson, noting that the two were once patrol partners and that Simpson took over Liczbinski's unit following his death.

Liczbinski was shot May 3, 2008, while responding to a bank robbery.

Simpson's patrol car was struck by another car on Nov. 17 as he was responding to a robbery in Port Richmond. *