Nichole Gupton lost her fiance, Atlantic City police Officer Kevin Wilkins, eight months before their wedding day.
Wilkins died from an accidental gunshot wound when he attempted to install a rubber sleeve on the grip of his semiautomatic pistol and the remaining bullet in the gun’s chamber discharged. He died in 2010.
“It’s nine years, and it feels like nine days,” Gupton said. Wilkins was the most recent of the nine officers the department has lost in the city’s history.
Gupton was one of the many friends and family who attended a ceremony Thursday that honored the fallen officers and other first responders at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, followed by a procession to the In the Line of Duty Memorial at St. James Place and the Boardwalk.