The Suffolk Police Department marked National Police Week with a Tuesday morning ceremony in City Council chambers.

Lifelong resident and business owner Billy Chorey Sr. provided the keynote address, and officers who have died in the line of duty in Suffolk and in the nation were remembered.

Chorey brought some humor to the event by remembering himself as an 8-year-old boy who offered then-Chief Lawrence Butler, who was a friend of his family, help catching speeders in his neighborhood.

Chorey would sit in his front yard with a glass of lemonade until he saw a car he thought was going too fast. After chasing down the vehicle on his bicycle and obtaining the license plate number, he would leave a list of speeding suspects in Butler’s mailbox.

“I never did hear back from the chief,” Chorey joked.

But the ceremony took on a somber note when Chorey recounted some statistics about deaths of law enforcement officers in the line of duty.

Since the first recorded police death in America in 1791, there have been close to 21,000 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. A total of 1,466 died in the line of duty during the past 10 years, an average of one death every 60 hours.

A number of events are taking place in Washington, D.C., this week for the nationwide recognition of National Police Week. The names of 126 police officers who died in 2014 and who have been recently discovered through historical research will be placed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial during a Wednesday ceremony.

Chorey also took a somber tone talking about the most recent line-of-duty deaths, Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate of the Hattiesburg Police Department in Mississippi.

The two officers died during a shooting after Deen stopped a vehicle for speeding and Tate had arrived at the scene as backup, national media have reported.

Tate’s father told reporters his son had worked at an auto parts store for years and finally found his calling in police work.

“He had this enthusiasm, this fire in his soul,” Ronald Tate reportedly said. Chorey used the quote on Tuesday.

“You have fire in your soul,” he told dozens of police officers from Suffolk and surrounding jurisdictions in attendance at the memorial. “You see humanity at its very worst, and you still have to carry on as if everything is great. It’s almost like you’re not human.”

Chorey also remembered Suffolk’s most recent line-of-duty death. He said he knew Officer William Andrew “Drew” Henley, who died on March 19, 2005, and that Henley’s funeral was held at the church Chorey attends.

Officers placed four roses in a flower arrangement to honor the four line-of-duty deaths in Suffolk’s history.

Policeman George T. Smith died July 4, 1908, after being shot by a man he had arrested earlier in the day for being drunk in public.

Police Chief William E. Brinkley died Dec. 2, 1918, after attempting to apprehend a man wanted in another state. He had received a telegram notifying him the escaped convict would be arriving at the Suffolk train station with illegal liquor. The suspect opened fire immediately upon seeing Brinkley and another officer. He had been with the agency for 18 years.

Patrolman Joseph Pratt died after being shot twice in the abdomen on Oct. 19, 1935. He had been trying to serve a warrant on the shooter for failing to pay child support. Pratt — who was the other officer with Chief Brinkley in the train station incident — had been with the agency for 27 years.

Henley suffered a fatal heart attack during a foot pursuit of a suspect. He and his partner were on patrol in the Webb Street area when they observed several suspicious men. One of them fled when the officers approached, and Henley gave chase. He collapsed immediately after taking the suspect into custody and died shortly after midnight on March 20. The man he had arrested was wanted in New Jersey on assault and battery charges. Henley had been with the Suffolk Police Department for three years. He was survived by a wife and four children, and the street on which the police department headquarters now sits was renamed after him.