Lima buries police department time capsule

LIMA — Sixty-three years from now, Lima residents will dig up a time capsule that currently sits underground in front of the Lima Police Department.

Lima Police Chief Jim Baker said the event to bury the capsule was an opportunity to do the opposite of forgetting history.

“It seems like we have a desire to revise or ignore the past,” he said. “But what we are doing today is the opposite of that. We are honoring the past.”

The capsule, which will be opened in 2087 to celebrate the department’s 200th birthday, contains badges, equipment, reports and pictures of officers from different years, as well as letters from officials, judges and Mayor Sharetta Smith to give a perspective of the current time.

“My letter just talks about where we are in this moment in the country, as well as how Lima is in a period of revitalization,” Smith said. “We talk about the economic development that we’ve see in downtown over the last decade, as well as some of the challenges that we’re facing right now including housing demand and gun violence. I also shared a little reflection about what it’s like to be the first woman and African-American mayor of Lima.”

Recently retired police chief Angel Cortes shared the work it took to get the project started and completed while he served.

“It started with replacing the police department sign that was falling apart,” he said. “We talked to the mayor, and she said to go ahead and do it. We realized we should rip out the lawn, and then we started talking about a memorial.”

The capsule, which sits in front of the new sign, is also in front of a memorial to fallen officers and covered by bricks bearing the names of Lima chiefs, officers who fell in the line of duty and employees who have retired from the department.

“For previous police chiefs and officers who have died in the line of duty, we provide those,” Baker said. “And then others can purchase a brick. They can also purchase an extra commemorative brick to take home.”

Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.