Three officers gunned down in the line of duty have been etched in history and immortalised at police memorials, as their heartbroken families and colleagues laid wreaths in their honour.

Tears of grief fell as thousands of people paid tribute to officers killed on the job at National Police Remembrance Day services around Australia, with the entire policing family still reeling from their deaths.

No one knows the horrors of the job more than the families of Victorian police Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart, killed in northern Victoria in August 26, and Tasmania Police Constable Keith Anthony Smith, shot dead in the state's north in June.

Leading Senior Constable Thompson, a Victoria Police veteran of 38 years, was just a week away from retiring.

Their mourning families laid fl

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