Memorial plaque honors slain Traverse City parking worker downtown
A downtown plaque now marks the State Street garage where Lawrence Boyd IV was killed, turning a parking structure into a public site of memory.
A plaque at the State Street parking structure now marks the spot where Lawrence Boyd IV worked and died, turning a routine downtown garage into a public place of remembrance. Boyd, 32, was honored April 28 during National Workers Memorial Day, with his parents unveiling the memorial alongside City Manager Benjamin Marentette.
The tribute comes after a fatal shooting that shook downtown Traverse City and drew investigators into a broader case tied to car thefts, a chase and shots fired at officers. Police found Boyd’s body around 300 East State Street the morning after the shooting on Nov. 15, 2025. Prosecutors later charged Eugene Thompson, then 17, and Hunter Vanderwall, then 18, and both were arraigned Nov. 18 in Grand Traverse County’s 86th District Court and denied bond.
The plaque carries Boyd’s name and dates, including the inscription, “In Honor And Memory of Lawrence H. Boyd IV.” Its placement at the Larry C. Hardy Parking Structure, 303 East State Street, gives the memorial a permanence that reaches beyond the criminal case and back into Boyd’s daily work. It stands where employees, residents and visitors still move through the city’s parking system every day.
That system is not minor. Traverse City says Parking Services provides more than 3,000 vehicular parking spaces and more than 125 bicycle parking locations downtown. The structure where Boyd worked is part of how the city manages access for workers, shoppers, patients and visitors in a dense downtown where parking is tied directly to commerce and daily life.
The ceremony also placed Boyd’s death in a wider civic context, with National Workers Memorial Day underscoring the risks faced by employees who keep public services running. With Marentette leading the memorial and Boyd’s parents taking part, the city framed the plaque as more than a gesture of sympathy. It is now part of the downtown landscape, a permanent reminder that a public employee was killed while doing his job in the middle of the city’s core.
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