Son of fallen officer surprised with police memorabilia

A boy who lost his father and the cards he collected got a new gift from officers around the country.

Anamosa police officer, Mitch Kelchen, died in a car crash over Labor Day weekend while off duty.

His son, Shane, collected business cards before his dad's death but someone destroyed the cards.

Ever since then, police departments around Iowa have been collecting and sending cards to Shane, including the Kansas City, Kansas police department.

On Friday, Shane and his family walked into the Bellevue police station not knowing why, and they got a gift Shane wasn't expecting.

He said, "I thought it was just gonna be business cards or a box of stuff, but I didn't think it was gonna be picture frames."

Officer Travis Toms and his associate presented Shane with two frames full of over 150 business cards.

While looking at all of the cards with his family, Shane notices a particularly special card: his dad's.

"We didn't know that he had a business card and I didn't have one of his so that's the first one I've gotten," Shane said.

Toms says he heard about Shane's story and immediately knew he wanted to help.

Toms says he thought, "well you know we've got a lot officers in the department so I just began to collect them throughout the department."

"Our detectives were able to supply me with cards from anywhere from New York, all the way to LA," Toms added.

Shane's mom, Tina Kelchen, never expected this much support.

She said it's been, "beyond anything I could have ever even imagined."

She says it's only confirmed what she already knew about the law enforcement community.

"I knew that we were all one family, but this is really reinforced that they're all truly there for us, they're right by our side, they have been through this whole process," she said.

Now they'll add these frames to their growing collection as a reminder of the type of man their dad and husband was.

"He was well-loved, I mean he was an amazing person," Tina said.

Shane's collection includes about 10,000 cards, plus challenge coins, patches and letters of support.