Page 42 - FOP June 2019 Magazine

It’s Gotta Be The Shoes
CPD wows Honor Guard competition with riveting tribute
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Murmurs spread through the crowd massing by the U.S. Cap- itol reflecting pool for the National Honor Guard Competition on the Tuesday morning of National Police Week. The Chicago Police Department Honor Guard mustered for its presentation and in approximately 30 minutes, the team would be moving into the exhibition ring.
The exhibition is the last of the three phases of an honor guard’s competition recital, and the CPD has become nation- ally renowned for its powerful exhibitions. So fans began lining up along the rails of the ring nearly three rows deep, as if Kanye, Muddy Waters or Chicago was about to perform.
“We don’t twirl rifles or anything like that,” declared Law- rence Odoms, a 21-year member of the CPD Honor Guard who has been in this ring countless times. “We pay homage to our fallen and our families.”
A vase of roses, four doves, 10 pairs of shoes and a banner with the faces of Commander Paul Bauer and Officers Samuel Jimenez, Conrad Gary and Eduardo Marmolejo set the stage for the Chicago Police Honor Guard’s performance. The exhibition had not even begun yet, but the testament these officers pre- pared to deliver was loud and clear:
They did not come to Washington, D.C., to compete. They came to honor.
42 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JUNE 2019
“The exhibition portion is very unique to us because we feel it’s important that we honor the families of our fallen officers,” reasoned Officer Mike Ostrowski, the leader of the CPD Honor Guard for its Police Week duties. “The whole key to us is to get the message across. If the families got it and the people got it, then we won. We did our job: to honor.”
Factoring in the three phases of the competition put the CPD Honor Guard in the same league as the other 10 squads that en- tered. The Team Inspection phase measuring neatness, cleanli-
CPD Honor Guard member Detective Cullen Murphy holds a pair of shoes from Tess Gary that he pulled out of her father Conrad’s Class A shoes to culminate the squad’s exhibition at the National Honor Guard Competition during Police Week in Washington, D.C.