[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 18, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3546-H3547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SERGEANT MIKE LANE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to honor Sergeant Mike Lane, a 
lifelong Texan, member of the Beaumont Police Department for 33 years. 
Each day a person who wears the badge walks the thin blue line between 
life and death. Their spouses wonder when their police officer mate 
reports for duty if that person will return safely home. Last year, 156 
of them did not return home to their families. Texas, along with 
California, each led the Nation last year with 14 police officers 
killed in the line of duty. Sergeant Mike Lane was one of them.
  Mike Lane graduated from Beaumont High School in 1969 and received 
his pilot's license even prior to high school graduation at the young 
age of 17. He attended Lamar Tech, now Lamar University, until he 
decided to answer the call of law enforcement. In 1972, Sergeant Lane 
joined the Beaumont Police Department where his lengthy legacy began. 
He spent 32 years with the same police department in southeast Texas, 
fighting crime, helping people.
  A son of a retired Air Force member, Mike Lane was raised in airplane 
hangars all over the world from Japan to the United States. He had the 
passion of the Wright brothers for flying. He had aviation in his Texas 
blood. In the mid-80s, the Beaumont Police Department seized a plane 
used to smuggle drugs from Belize to Texas. After acquiring the plane, 
they began using it for local missions. Sergeant Lane immediately 
jumped at the chance to get in the pilot's seat for the citizens of 
Jefferson County. He was one of the two designated pilots for the 
Beaumont Police Department.
  Just as policemen are drawn together by common goals, pilots seem to 
congregate together as well. His partner in the sky was another pilot 
in the police department, Deputy Chief Weldon

[[Page H3547]]

Dunlap. Deputy Chief Dunlap recalls, ``Mike had an amazing wealth of 
knowledge about aircraft. He literally ate, drank, and slept 
airplanes.''
  When the Army gave the Beaumont Police Department two helicopters, it 
was only natural that Lane would be heavily involved in the helicopter 
operations that would come up. Any time there was a mission or 
training, Lane was the first in line to take part in it.
  On the evening of September 15, 2004, the neighboring Port Arthur 
Police Department reported a boat fire on Sabine Lake. Lane was one of 
two pilots who was called to duty for the search and rescue mission 
that took place that moonless night, a night that Deputy Chief Dunlap 
recalled was extra dark. During the flight, Lane was tasked with 
shining the spotlight on the large, murky, marshy Sabine Lake near the 
Texas-Louisiana border while the other officer maneuvered the 
helicopter through the intense, immense darkness that surrounded them.
  Flying a mere 6 feet above the lake in an effort to get closer and 
look for people or debris in the water, Sergeant Lane was once again 
fulfilling his oath to protect and serve the people.
  Sergeant Lane and crew made last contact shortly after 10:30 p.m. and 
after that, there was only silence, silence in the stillness of the 
damp, dark, dreary night. A helicopter search team spotted the wreckage 
almost 4 hours later at 2 o'clock in the morning. Jefferson County 
Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Battenfield, who was piloting the helicopter, 
survived the crash with minor injuries; but in the line of duty, doing 
what he loved and what he did best at the age of 54, Sergeant Mike Lane 
lost his life in the stillness of that September night.
  Hundreds of law enforcement members from across Texas and Louisiana 
traveled to South Park Baptist Church in Beaumont to pay their respects 
to a unique and talented officer and pilot that will never be replaced. 
He was laid to rest in the same church where he served as a deacon and 
a mentor to kids.
  Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, I had the opportunity to participate 
in the Fraternal Order of Police's 24th annual National Peace Officers 
Memorial Service here on the Capitol grounds to remember those police 
officers killed last year. I was honored to join the multitude of 
officers and surviving family members who traveled to Washington to 
assure their comrades that they never walk alone. I spent time with 
Sergeant Lane's wife, Renee; his son Ben; and his two sisters; and I 
was moved by the memories they had of their husband, their father, and 
their brother.
  Mr. Speaker, there are more than 800,000 members of the law 
enforcement community in this Nation. They wear the badge, and with 
that badge they become a cut above the rest of us. They do what most of 
us would not do. They watch out for our country, our kids, our family 
and our great land.
  In 2004, 156 officers were killed in the line of duty. Last year, our 
military lost nearly 900 of its band of brothers during operations in 
Iraq and Afghanistan. And while we often pay daily tribute to our 
fallen military who have been combating outlaws across the sea, these 
warriors against domestic outlaws, our police officers, often remain 
nameless, statistical heroes.
  When President Bush spoke this last weekend, he stated that every 
generation of Americans has produced men and women willing to stand in 
watch over the rest of us. They are peace officers. When Sergeant Lane 
lost his life on the Sabine Lake that night, he did not die alone. His 
conviction, courage, and character live on and his spirit watches over 
his friends and family and the citizens of Jefferson County, Texas, 
that he devoted his life in protecting.
  Thank you, Sergeant Mike Lane.

                          ____________________