LMPD :: Louisville Metro Police Department
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Fallen police officer's father pays tribute to son in new book

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The book, Forever 27, is available for purchase at Amazon.com.

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The name Peter Grignon will forever bring to mind the sacrifices police officers make protecting the community.

The Louisville Metro Police officer was shot in the line of duty March 23, 2005. For many of us, that's most of what we know about Peter, but his father says there was so much more.

It's not just Peter's memory but the impact that his sudden death had on his family, and especially his father, that's in Donald Grignon's new book Forever 27.

The cover says it all. It's a tribute to the person and the police officer.

On the back of the book, Don wrote a summary that starts, "On a cold, wet March morning four shots sliced through the silent streets of Louisville. Three bullets struck the officer's head and one hit his throat."

A teenage gunman shot his son, Peter, right before he ended his shift in LMPD'S 2nd division in Southwest Louisville. Peter volunteered to take the call.

"The day that Peter died, I can recall and live second by second," Don said. "It's as clear as -- well it's probably clearer than yesterday at my age.'

He said he knew shortly after peter's murder he would write a book about his son.

"What I wanted to do is keep Peter's memory alive and this is therapy for me," Don said.

In Forever 27, Don is also reaching out to other parents who have lost children, especially the parents of police officers.

"We can talk to each other," he said of his work with COPS, Concerns of Police Survivors. "We can honestly say, 'I know how you feel.' We have that compatibility. We have that understanding, one to another."

Don Grignon can only guess how Peter would react to the book, "He'd sit over there and say, 'Oh, Dad, why did you do this,' but he'd be proud of it. I think. I hope."

What he knows is that these had to be the final words in the book about his son who was so much more than just a fallen police officer: The final page of the book reads, "Peter, I love you. Dad."

It took Donald Grignon seven years off and on to write Forever 27. His book is available for purchase now on Amazon.

Don said proceeds from the book will go to a scholarship in Peter's name at Eastern Kentucky University for the School of Criminal Justice.

The teenager who shot Officer Grignon turned the gun on himself and died. Peter, sadly, was killed on his father's birthday and just five days after his first wedding anniversary.