Page 22 - FOP August 2019 Magazine

Portraits by Peter Bucks
Tributes to officers from the CPD Officer, Lodge 7 member and renowned artist
‘Cops anywhere have a pretty tough job’
n BY AMBER RAMUNDO
What began as a two-year station assignment in the Army turned into the start of a love story when Matthew Bouch met a local citizen in Germany who would one day become his wife.
Anja and Mathew married abroad before returning to his hometown outside of Buffalo, New York, in 2001.
With four years of service complete and a family in the works, Bouch was ready to be- gin the next chapter of his life, wherever that might be.
The couple set their sights on Chicago, after Anja found an interior design school to attend in the Windy City and Bouch submitted the police exam to join the Chicago Po- lice Department.
“We commuted once or twice a month, depending on what part of the test I was tak- ing,” Bouch shared. “She went to school and I became a cop.”
On Dec. 1, 2002, the couple moved into an apartment in Lake View. Bouch started the police academy the very next day.
“I really didn’t know anything about the city,” he re- called. “I knew how to get from my apartment to the acade- my and that was really it.”
DETECTIVE MATHEW BOUCH Star #20224
Bouch admitted. “It was defi- nitely an eye-opening experi- ence for me. Looking back, it was probably one of the bet- ter things for me to go there and learn as much as I did, as quickly as I did.”
Bouch joined a tactical team in 2006 and later served on a gang enforcement unit, which often brought him right back to where he start- ed his career, on Chicago’s West Side.
It was around that time that his wife decided to switch careers from interior design to join her husband in serving the city where they were raising their two daugh- ters. Anja went to work in the First District, and Bouch was promoted to detective in Jan- uary 2017.
“Marriages take work and you’ve got to be patient,” Bouch noted, describing what he considers key to keeping a marriage strong between two CPD officers. “It’s about communication and cooperation, and it works both ways. If you can balance that, hopefully it
leads to a success story.”
Anja enjoys being an officer. She has even been able to
Though he was far from upstate New York, Bouch found that the neighborhoods in Chicago reminded him of his hometown. It wasn’t long before the city felt like home — especially once he was officially hired by the CPD on Dec. 2, 2002.
Four years in the Army also gave him the team mindset that helped him adjust to the job quickly.
“I connected with a lot of the people that I ended up going to the academy with. It reminded me of home,” Bouch insisted. “Just having that team experience of working with guys to achieve whatever you’re working on that day...I think the Army helped with that quite a bit.”
Bouch may have felt that familiar small-town vibe but was quickly faced with the reality of the city he worked in when he was called to the scene of a shooting his second day on the job, in the 11th District.
“Working in the 11th District was like nothing I’d ever seen,”
22 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ AUGUST 2019
put her German to use while helping tourists navigate Chicago. For Bouch, the rewards of the job now come from his role in in- vestigating homicides, which helps bring closure to families who
have lost a loved one.
“Sometimes, these homicide investigations can take years,”
Bouch insisted. “You have to keep checking in with the families to let them know you’re working on it and trying to do your best.” Though the motivation of Bouch’s detective work is always to find answers and bring justice to those involved, it’s the mystery of each investigation that holds his interest. Bouch embraces the challenges within each investigation to understand the motive
behind the crime.
“I think cops anywhere have a pretty tough job,” Bouch recog-
nized. “It’s always changing, and public perception always plays into it, but I would say that my wife and I together have put a lot of time and effort into it. It’s nice to hear that people appreciate what we do.”