STURGIS, SD – National Police Week is underway across the nation, with events taking place in Washington, DC all this week, honoring men and women in law enforcement. It’s a week set aside to pay tribute to the courageous police officers, sheriff’s deputies and all law enforcement professionals who take care of our cities and communities.
“People in law enforcement choose this career to be able to help people,” said Meade County Sheriff Pat West “That’s the number one thing I hear when I interview people. It’s important to recognize these guys and gals that are out there giving it their all for the community and wanting to do what’s best and help people, and remembering them and their sacrifice is extremely important just because they’re putting other people first.”
May 15th is designated as Peace Officer’s Memorial Day, an observance that pays tribute to the local, state and federal peace officers who have died in the line of duty. South Dakota Highway Patrol Trooper Oren Hindman, a trooper stationed at the Sturgis squad office, was on patrol on Thursday, May 2nd, 1985 near Spearfish and pulled over a woman for DUI. Hindman was transporting her and her boyfriend, Wade Aikens, into town for booking and processing. Aikens was in the backseat and made the fatal decision to stab Trooper Hindman in the neck, and then fled on foot with his girlfriend. Hindman drove himself to Spearfish Hospital but died of his wounds before surgeons arrived. Aikens was captured hours later and arrested for the murder the memory of that tragic night still haunts Trooper Hindman’s widow, Vicki, all these years later.
“When I stop and think, 40 years, has it been that long,” Hindman said. “There are some times that it just seems like yesterday.”
Vicki and Oren met in Sturgis in the late 1970s, while Vicki was working as a police dispatcher and Oren arrived from his hometown of Watertown as a brand-new State Trooper.
“I heard ‘he’s single’ and I thought that might be a little interesting,” Hindman laughed. “We met through law enforcement, and we would see each other at the scene of an accident sometimes, while I was working for the ambulance service.”
Oren and Vicki dated for a couple of years and were married in 1980 Their daughter, Erin, was born in 1982. Vicki says Oren was a great Dad to Erin.
“Oren was very active in taking care of Erin, she was his life. After Erin was born, he would make sure that he could make it home, have something to eat and put her to bed while he was on duty.”
Vicki says that Erin has only vague memories of her Dad.
“ She remembers nothing specific. Other Troopers would talk to her about him, tell her stories about Oren and that’s the sad part, that she never got to know her Dad. The night that he died, we were standing at the window and I was holding her and she waved goodbye to him, and then he never came home .”
On May 2nd, the 40th anniversary of his death, the Sturgis chapter of the American Legion Riders and members of the South Dakota Highway Patrol honored Trooper Hindman with a flag line, a wreath laying and the playing of Taps at his grave site at Black Hills National Cemetery.
The State of South Dakota honored Trooper Hindman during Police Week in 2017 with a sign on Interstate 90 just outside of Spearfish.
“No one killed in the line of duty should be forgotten, I don’t care if it’s 20 years ago or 50 years ago they need to be remembered because they are an example,” Hindman said. “Oren’s main focus was to help people, and that’s why he went into law enforcement. He tried to be kind and to go out of his way to help people, that’s how I want him to be remembered.”
Trooper Oren Hindman is one of 59 peace officers who have died in the line of duty in South Dakota.
Vicki and Erin have given thanks to the South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers who’ve supported her over the past four decades by cooking evening meals for them during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally at the Squad Office here in Sturgis. Vicki says it is the least she can do for all of the love and support she has received from Troopers and their families.
