Honoring Four Oakland Heroes

This is a leather mosaic by Philip Long. It is a memorial to the four Oakland Police Officers killed in the line of duty on March 21, 2009. On that day Sergeants Dunakin, Romans, Sakai and Officer Hege gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect the people of Oakland. After watching the funeral on TV I was moved to make a tribute to their memory.

I contacted Renee Hassna of the Oakland Police Officers Association and she was my liaison to the four families. I asked for any type of leather from each officer: an old sneaker, a piece of a chair cushion they might be throwing away, anything as small as a square inch just to have something personal from each Officer in the piece. It was very important to me that she only ask once and not to pester the families about the leather. "If they say no, don't ask a second time."

I was personally familiar with how the stress of the situation was bad enough without the press and other requests as I was the one person in my family who took all the phone calls when my father was killed in a violent crime sailing off the coast of Mexico a year earlier.

My heart goes out to the families of these brave men. I wish I could have met them all and thanked them personally but I understand how overwhelmed they must be at this time. It is my plan to auction off the piece and donate the proceeds to an education fund for the children of the Officers. I hope the piece stays in Oakland.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Honoring Four Oakland Heroes
• Philip Long
• Leather mosaic
• Phil Long
• longleather
• longleather@gmail.com
• Fallen Heroes
• Oakland Police Department
• OPD
• Four Fallen Heroes
• 4 fallen heroes
• 4 Oakland Heroes
• 2009
• Oakland Shooting
• OPD Shooting

[HarleyHimself1]

What an incredible piece of Art. The thought, the methodical assembly process, the artistic license, the addition of the Officer's personal items and of course the workmanship were/are amazing.

Incredible!

[mikentosh]

Holy shit Phil....That was very impressive! Excellent video presentation brings it all together... I remember you working at a leather shop on E14th...

[Tubertop]

Awesome Phil, this is brilliant!

[33hahahahahaha]

Very cool Phil!

[Tricky5]

The documenting of these pieces ads a welcome dimension to the finished work of art. Makes me wonder what you'll be up to this year.

[breathingwithmylungs]

This is so awesome Phil, keep doing what you're doing and keep making this cool videos!

[MosaicGeek]

Very cool! Amazing how much work has gone into this.  Impressive!

[jonanjello]

Very nice, Phil. The time involved to create the piece is huge.