Petaluma police hosting open house to honor fallen officers

On Nov. 7, 1969, Petaluma Police Officer Vilho Ahola was shot in the neck while on a domestic disturbance call about a man and a woman fighting.

The man pulled out a handgun and demanded Ahola hand over his own weapon. There was a struggle, and then the man’s gun fired.

Ahola was left paralyzed, a quadriplegic who used a wheelchair until he died of complications 29 years later.

He’s the most recent Petaluma officer to die of an injury suffered on the job. There is just one other in the department’s history: Constable Rasmus Rasmussen, who was shot dead in a gunfight on April 20, 1927, while outside the house of a wanted killer who’d barricaded himself inside.

Monday is National Peace Officers Memorial Day; it marks the start of National Police Week, and this year, the Petaluma department is doing something new to honor its fallen officers. For the first time, it’s having an open house - inviting the public in to get a glimpse of what officers do every day.

Sgt. Paul Gilman said the event is the newest way the department is trying to improve its transparency.

“It’s that continuing development of our chief’s vision to really interact more with citizens,” he said. “We’re starting to look for new ways to integrate into the community and invite people in to see that we’re normal people that do normal things and let them meet us, let them get to know us. This way there’s not that veil of secrecy.”

Police officers have faced renewed criticism in recent years, as departments all over the country have come under intense scrutiny for on-the-job tactics in the wake of racially charged shootings by officers.

“We’ve been very fortunate in Petaluma that we haven’t had a polarizing issue like an Andy Lopez ... or even Michael Brown,” Gilman said. “When an incident like that happens, the knee-jerk reaction is going to be ‘We don’t know who these people are; we see them driving around with their sunglasses on and speeding past us,’ but we want the knee-jerk reaction to be, ‘Oh, we know these people; they’re good folks. Let’s see how this plays out.’”

The open house is one more way for the department to avail itself to the community while at the same time honoring its fallen officers.

“The nature of law enforcement right now is very different than when I first started,” said Gilman, who started with the Petaluma department almost 30 years ago. “I don’t do well living in a world where people might assume that because I wear a uniform, I might be a bad guy.”

Ahola is revered among Petaluma officers as someone who continued working with the department after the shooting. His main focus was on the kind of community engagement the department is working to improve.

Every year, the department gives out an award in Ahola’s name to an employee who embodies his spirit, his dedication to the public, his focus on community involvement.

“Some people think law enforcement’s always good, and that’s not true. And some people think law enforcement is always bad, and that’s also not true,” Gilman said. “It’s those people in the middle that we need to keep reaching out to and acknowledge.”

The open house is 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesday at the department’s station, 969 Petaluma Blvd. N.

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.