Page 38 - October Newsletter

REMEMBERING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36
The standoff lasted more than seven hours, and HBT launched about 30 rounds of tear gas to get Hudson to surrender. There is a famous photo of Garza holding a shotgun to Hudson’s head as he walked him out when he finally was told his friend had not died.
Hudson was eventually declared unfit to stand trial due to men- tal illness. He was hospitalized and died in 1994. But if there is a les- son to be learned from all this, Garza would like it to be that Chica- go Police Officers are always, always stronger than the people who take shots at them.
When you are 4 months old, or 4 years old, and a gunshot to the head leaves your father with a traumatic brain injury, you basically grow up without a father. The boys knew Bernie put his family be- fore anything else, and they took solace and strength from a bond they shared with the entire Chicago Police family: They had a dad who gave his life to the City.
“But I’m sure you can imagine the unique situation,” Adam ex- plains. “We really have learned along with everyone else about our dad.”
The public has provided. In the back of a book Denise made of pictures and assorted memorabilia from Bernie’s life is a perfectly typed letter sent to the chief of detectives. It’s a multipage thank- you note from a woman who was with a group in an RV passing through Chicago that broke down in one of city’s rougher neigh- borhoods.
Bernie and his partner pulled up on them in an unmarked car like knights in shining body armor. The RV needed a part. While his partner stayed with the group, Bernie took one of them to get the part. They were soon back on the road.
“Just one example of the letters and recognition we have come across to help paint a picture of who he was,” Craig reports. “There’s one after another about him making the best impact he could for
Bernie threw out the rst pitch at a Cubs game in 2011.
A group of Chicago Police O cers greeted Bernie when he was moved from the traumatic brain injury center in Carbondale to an assisted living facility in Chicago.
38 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ OCTOBER 2017