Each year, beneath the cemetery’s oaks, the circle forms again: Mitchell Penton’s family, friends and fellow Dallas officers return to the same patch of ground near his headstone.
On Friday morning, Penton’s broad-shouldered partner was there — the one his mother trusted to look out for her tall, skinny son. Nearby stood the chairman of a nonprofit that supports officers and their families, still marked by the fact that Penton was the first line-of-duty death he faced in the role.
And there, too, was the officer whom Penton was providing cover for before the fatal crash five years ago. Now a father himself, he gave his child Penton’s name as a tribute to the partner he lost.
“There’s a lot that Mitchell has missed,” said Kathy Penton, standing near her son’s grave in Restland Funeral Home’s Garden of Honor, where he lay beside others killed in the line of duty.
Breaking News
A portrait of the late Officer Mitchell Penton is hung after a ceremony at the Dallas Police Department Northeast Patrol Division in Dallas, TX, on Feb. 7, 2022.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
The gathering occurs each Feb. 13 to mark when Penton, a 27-year-old father with two years on the force, was killed by a speeding drunken driver while working another early morning crash on North Central Expressway at Walnut Hill Lane.
Penton grew up in North Texas and graduated from Richardson High School. A standout soccer player, he went on to Rogers State University in Oklahoma, where he played goalkeeper and earned a criminal justice degree in 2015.
He joined the Dallas Police Department in February 2019 and was last assigned to the Northeast Patrol Division, which spans northeast Dallas, Lake Highlands and Lakewood.
Before this year’s anniversary, QuikTrip, the convenience store chain, donated more than $500,000 to help the department buy four Ford F-550 “blocker” trucks, heavy vehicles meant to block traffic and shield first responders at highway scenes.
Dallas police officers salute as the U.S. flag is removed from the casket following a funeral service for Officer Mitchell Penton at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Feb. 22, 2021. Penton was killed Feb. 13, 2021, in a crash involving a drunken-driving suspect. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/Pool)
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
For the Pentons, the gift was a meaningful step toward sparing another family from having a yearly ritual like theirs.
“Mitchell was the blocker truck for the other officer. Had there been one, he would not be here,” Kathy Penton said, motioning toward his grave. “It’s very exciting that something positive can come from this.”
The Pentons have become familiar faces at police events, often volunteering and stepping in financially when they feel they can help, they said. Two years after Penton’s death, they learned the department’s Mounted Unit could use more horses.
They helped pay for a new mount — a part-Shire, part-Clydesdale with a brown coat and black mane and tail — and named him Walker, after their son’s favorite show, Walker, Texas Ranger. Walker, now 9, still works for the Mounted Unit.
The Penton family helped pay for a new mount and named him Walker, after their son’s favorite show, “Walker, Texas Ranger.” Walker, now 9, still works for the department’s Mounted Unit.
Dallas police / Provided by Dallas police
The Pentons said they see their service to the department as “finishing what he started.”
“It’s our ‘why,’” Penton’s father, Tim Penton, said.
The two have spent the last few Feb. 13’s at Restland in that same circle — trading hugs, laughs and stories until the daylight fades.
When they leave, they make one more stop: the Northeast Division station. They drop off a box of homemade brownies for the officers on the night shift, which their son had worked.