Page 48 - March 2018 FOP Newsletter

Commander Bauer
Honoring
They came, they supported, they honored
Hundreds of Police Officers from across the country paid tribute to their hero and showed their love for the Chicago Police Department
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Coppers stuffed the social hall at Nativ-
ity of Our Lord Catholic Church, forming a support group that extended across the U.S. and even beyond the borders. Half of the Police Officers wore Department blue, Lodge 7 members who gathered to watch the funeral for fallen Commander Paul Bauer on big-screen TVs because there was just no more room in the sanc- tuary. But the other 300 or so officers cast a rainbow of colors that spread the blue line from Montgomery, Alabama to Min- neapolis to Wilmington, Delaware to Dal- las to Detroit to Lincoln County, Wiscon- sin to Sarnia, Ontario.
The desire for officers from across the county and beyond to be there for the Chicago Police – the way the Chicago Police has always been there for them – drove hundreds of sisters and broth- ers to amazing extremes. Montgomery, Alabama Officer Denise Barnes and her husband, Sergeant Lonnie Barnes, drove 12 hours on Friday, Feb. 16, then stood on line for nearly three more to be at Com- mander Bauer’s visitation.
Dallas Officer Katie Roos had surprised her mother, who lives in Indiana, with a visit for Valentine’s Day. When she heard about the incident, Roos brought her mother to Chicago to attend the funeral. Four members of the Minneapolis Police Department Honor Guard were on their way to Westerville, Ohio to honor two officers gunned down three days before Bauer. Without even sleeping, they paid their respects in Ohio, then drove directly to Chicago.
“When you look around the room, you see New York and Dallas and Aurora and literally all corners of the U.S. coming to- gether today to show solidarity, brother- hood, support for the family and support for cops,” declared Minneapolis Officer Ken Tivgwell, who admitted he couldn’t remember what day it was. “You see the
Police Officers from across the country present arms to honor Commander Paul Bauer as his funeral procession departs from Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church in Bridgeport.
48 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MARCH 2018
outpouring of emotion and all the officers who have come through here and that’s what is important.”
Officers Rebecca Tristan and Susan McClenon joined Roos in representing Dallas to provide what they said Chicago Police gave them in July 2016, when four of their own were assassinated in one of the worst law enforcement tragedies ever. The bond that forms so quickly in a few minutes between officers who never met before lasts forever, which is a reason they came.
They are still coping with that tragedy, but the Dallas officers wanted to send some compassion out to their Chicago sisters and brothers.
“You want to celebrate their lives,” Tristan advised. “And you want to do the best job you can for your fallen brother.”
Detroit Metro Captain Conway Petty sat at the front of the social hall, where the senior officer in the room should be perched. He is 41 years into the job. He related how he buried a young officer a week ago and was preparing for another police funeral in the coming three days.
Petty has seen Chicago Police Officers every single time that Detroit has lost a member, and he can’t remember a police funeral he has been to where he hasn’t seen a member of the Department. Petty had a message that he knew Commander Bauer would fully support.