Ceremony commemorates officer's death in 1997

A wreath-laying ceremony will be held 10 a.m. today in Dundalk for Lt. Owen Sweeney, a city police officer who was fatally shot in 1997 while trying to coax a mentally disturbed man out of his apartment.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris will join Sweeney's widow, Elaine, at the memorial garden named in Sweeney's honor at Dundalk Community College, 7200 Sollers Point Road, for the ceremony commemorating the fifth anniversary of his death.

On May 7, 1997, while responding to a call for aid from the family of a mentally ill man, Sweeney, 47, a nearly 30-year veteran, was fatally wounded by a shotgun blast fired through the door of the apartment. He was the 97th city police officer to die in the line of duty.