Police officer removes graffiti from war memorial

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Bluesky
• Share on X
• Copy Link

For Ratt, who is in his 17th year of service with the PAPS, he said he wanted to show his respect to the veterans and the fallen soldiers by removing the remaining graffiti.

Moving on

Prodaehl to continue football career as a Ram following commitment to U of R

23m ago

Safer communities

Sask. dog rescue group says communities, not RCMP, responsible for stray dogs

29m ago

Homelessness

Increased provincial grant means two warming shelters in Prince Albert this winter

2h ago

Initially, he didn’t want to tell anyone what he was doing. His partner on the PAPS is a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and Ratt wanted him to be the first person to know about the cleanup.

“So, they’re asking what I was doing because I was getting articles from work as well; hot water, towels and a brush, and they’re wondering what the heck I was doing, so I just told them, ‘you know what, I just got a project that I want to do.’”

“And I wanted my co-worker to be the first one to know about it because he’s a proud veteran and I’m proud to honour him in that manner.”

Ratt said he just wanted to show his co-worker that there are people who care and do respect veterans.

His efforts were praised by the president of the Prince Albert branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, Gary Renaud.

“I’m very pleased, because something like that shouldn’t be all defaced and that, and I hope that this will put an end to it. It’s too bad that people have to destroy stuff like this,” Renaud said.

He added the memorial was built in memory of people who fought for our freedoms.

Renaud extends his thanks to Ratt, and said it’s an honour to have it clean.

The City was going to wait until the spring to attempt to sandblast the graffiti off of the monument. However, Ratt used a cleaning product called Pink Solution, which is marketed as containing no chemicals. He bought it and figured it was worth a try. He said he used “elbow grease” more than anything.

He had to return on two separate occasions to attempt to clean the memorial. It was dark and cold, but the cold weather didn’t interfere with the cleanup.

“Just the water, I had to make sure that it didn’t freeze over. That was the only challenging part.”

Ratt, who is originally from Pelican Narrows, but was raised in Prince Albert since the age of 10, said he hopes people respect the veterans and the freedoms they fought for.

“And I just hope that people respect, again, our veterans and people that serve and respect property as well.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames