SALT LAKE CITY — Unified Police Officer Doug Barney was shot and killed in the line of duty exactly one year ago. Now, 35 billboards across the state carry his picture to show he may be gone but certainly not forgotten.

Jan. 17 is a date many will always remember.

"It's a date that now I'll always have in my calendar. It's an important date to me because it's the day I lost one of my best friends in the world," said Unified Police Lt. Lex Bell. "It's been really difficult at times and frustrating, even at times kind of thinking through what happened and why, and trying to come to grips with it," he added.

On Jan. 17, 2016, Barney, 44, was shot and killed while looking for a man who left the scene of a traffic accident in Holladay. Barney's partner was also shot but recovered.

"(Officer Barney) went to work that morning like any other Sunday and went on a call that he's been on thousands of times in his career. And without any warning, all of a sudden he's dead," Bell said.

Hired the same day, assigned to the same grid for five years, Bell and Barney were not only brothers in arms but also friends.

"I think about Doug every day, I really do," Bell said.

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Doug Barney used to spend a lot of time looking at the Utah Fallen Officers Memorial Web page, his widow, Erika Barney recalled Monday.

Barney's memory will be a part of Bell's life forever, and he hopes the billboards will help others remember his friend.

"We'll get to see him up on those billboards and people will remember," Bell said. "To have those signs along the highway where people commuting are going to see that all day, going back and forth, and think about that and remember the sacrifice made by their public servants every day."

Bell said Jan. 17 will forever be a difficult day but he plans to do something positive this year and every year to remember the good times, because that's what Officer Barney would have wanted.

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