Yosemite Boulevard dedicated in memory of fallen Modesto police officers

Modesto’s busy Yosemite Boulevard on Sunday will be dedicated in honor of the only two Modesto police officers killed in action in the department’s 134-year history.

Signs already have been installed designating Yosemite, also known as Highway 132 east, as “Modesto Police Officer Leo Volk Jr. and Police Sergeant Steve May Memorial Highway.” They died after car crashes in 1973 and 2002, respectively, less than a mile apart, on or near the road.

“Many folks at the MPD might quietly feel fortunate ... that they’ve had to bury only two of their own who died in the line of duty since the department was formed in 1884,” then-Modesto Bee columnist Jeff Jardine wrote when May was buried in 2009, having died seven years after his crash without regaining consciousness.

Several other officers have been shot or otherwise hurt over the decades, but none has died from such injuries.

Volk, 24, had worked three years for the department when a vehicle pulled in front of his patrol car during a high-speed chase on May 21, 1973. The fleeing driver sped away as Volk swerved and a front tire blew out, sending him into a skid across Yosemite and into a large concrete block at a construction site at Conejo Avenue. The other driver was never apprehended.

Volk revived enough to say he was “chasing (an) orange GTO” for an unknown reason, and he died soon after.

Twenty-nine years later, May, a 23-year department veteran, was looking for a stolen pickup being chased by other units in the airport neighborhood south of Yosemite when the 18-year-old suspect, driving without headlights at 1:45 a.m., rammed May’s patrol car on July 29, 2002, killing the suspect and putting the sergeant into a coma. He held on for seven years, eventually succumbing to fevers and pneumonia.

“It is because of this proximity that (Highway) 132 was chosen as the appropriate location to memorialize these heroes,” said Daniel Starr. He is vice president of the Modesto Police Officers Association, which is organizing Sunday’s event with help from the police department, the Modesto Police Management Association and the Peace Officer Memorial Group of Stanislaus County.

Assemblymen Adam Gray and Heath Flora sponsored legislation to dedicate the state highway.

A notice says the dedication ceremony starts at 10 a.m. Sunday at 3801 Yosemite Blvd., between Claus Road and a nearby Starbucks Coffee.

In unrelated news, drivers on Yosemite are likely to encounter traffic and delays this week because crews are doing utility work along the roadway at Mariposa Avenue. The California Department of Transportation suggests avoiding that intersection.

Garth Stapley: 209-578-2390

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This story was originally published August 20, 2018 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Yosemite Boulevard dedicated in memory of fallen Modesto police officers."