BATON ROUGE – A portion of Airline Highway in Baton Rouge has been renamed in honor of four law enforcement officers killed in a July 2016 shooting along the highway.

The portion of Airline from Baton Rouge Police Headquarters to around Old Hammond Highway was memorialized with a sign designating it as "Jackson, Gerald, Garafola, Tullier Memorial Highway" on Wednesday during a ceremony near BRPD Headquarters. 

The victims of the July 2016 shooting were Deputy Bradford Allen Garafola, 45, Officer Matthew Lane Gerald, 41, Corporal Montrell Lyle Jackson, 32, and Sergeant Nicholas Tullier, 46. Two additional officers were shot in the incident, but survived the attack.

State Sen. Rick Edmonds, who authored a law in the recent legislative session to name the stretch of Airline after the fallen officers, spoke at the dedication of the stretch of Airline, expressing his respect for the officers who lost their lives.

"The word for this ceremony is the word honor. We can't ever stop honoring those who live and serve and those who die and serve. Whether it's police officers or whether it's people in the medical profession, law enforcement, military, honor is a word that we've been taught since we were children," Edmonds said.