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Mother fights to save son's memorial in Firestone park

Posted at 6:35 PM, Feb 08, 2018
and last updated 2018-02-08 20:46:49-05

FIRESTONE, Colo. — Born with a playful spirit, 3-year-old Daniel Sutton loved to sing and play. 

Andrea Sutton says her son’s happy place was Harney Park in the Weld County town of Firestone. 

“We walked to the park a lot and would play. He liked the slides,” said Andrea Sutton. 

She says the park is where her son’s spirit lives.

“It’s like our happy place. This is where we remember Daniel,” said Sutton. 

Eight years ago, Daniel Sutton died from accidentally strangling himself with a window blind cord. 

Her son’s memorial, built at Harney Park, is a way to help ease the pain, which is why she is hurt by Firestone City Manager Bruce Nickerson’s remarks during a recent board meeting regarding a new ordinance regulating memorial sites.

Nickerson says he had received concerns from residents claiming the Harney Park memorial looked more like a grave site and suggested that it would be best to remove it.

Sutton moved out of the area following her son’s death but says reasons given at the meeting aren’t enough to relocate her son’s memorial. 

“That upsets me because a memorial is to honor someone who has died. It doesn’t matter if they have moved out or their families moved away,” said Sutton. 

Denver7 has since contacted the city, and a spokesperson with the city manager’s office says while the ordinance has passed they have not made any decision surrounding Sutton’s memorial. They plan to sit down with Sutton to address the issue.  

Sutton says there is no place for her son’s memorial but at the park where her son loved to be the most.

“If this is where he lived, where he played and this where he died,” said Sutton.