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Among the photos on the Beyond the Call of Duty Ride to Remember trailer are those of Chicago Police Officers Ronald Newman, Marco DiFranco, Clif- ford Martin and Titus Moore.
When Shah and the rest of the Ride to Remember team pulled up in Chicago, they were met by two Chicago Police Department motor units and vehicles that escorted them to the FOP Lodge.
The families of the 2020 fallen officers watched the group roll up with six motorcycles, advertising the mission of Beyond the Call of Duty. They had written the information of each Chica- go officer on the bikes and shared who they were and how they were killed. On one of the bikes was Star No. 6622, Ronald New- man.
Newman was admitted to Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Evergreen Park on March 26, 2020. The staff began running tests and diagnosed Ronald with pneumonia. But on the third day of his hospital stay, the nurses called his wife, Chiquita, to say that Ronald had COVID-19.
“By that fourth day, that COVID had, I guess, just traveled through his body,” Chiquita explained. “So that fourth day, he was really down and out, couldn’t breathe. But the next day, he was laughing and joking and talking. This went on for three weeks straight.”
Chiquita wasn’t allowed in the hospital to see her husband and instead relied on FaceTime to communicate. On April 17, 2020, Ronald called his wife, as had become their daily routine.
“He said, ‘Babe, they’re getting ready to put me on a ventila- tor, because my organs are working too hard and I just need to rest,’” Chiquita recounted. “I said, ‘Oh, OK. OK.’ So he said, ‘I love you. I’ll see you soon.’ And he gave me one of his little crazy messages. So I said, ‘OK, honey. I’ll see you soon. Love you.’”
Two hours later, Chiquita received another call from the nurs- es. Ronald was about to pass. One hour later, the 19-year law enforcement veteran passed away.
“I couldn’t even get a last touch from him, because they wouldn’t let me just walk into that hospital room with him,” Chiquita said. “That’s all I wanted, was just, you know, let me just touch.”
Lodge 7 President John Catanzara was among the 75 in at- tendance this year and got to witness the trailer with the fallen officers’ photos arrive at the Lodge. He watched as Chiquita ran to Shah and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“As soon as [Chiquita] came up to the trailer, [Shah] gave her the first hug where she started losing it,” Catanzara expressed. “It was nice to know that there’s this connection that expands beyond the bounds of the city limits, the state borders and be- yond — that there is this fraternal brother- and sisterhood. Peo- ple who refuse to let anybody forget.”
Chiquita scanned the trailer for the photo of her late hus- band. She saw him smiling in that uniform — which he always made sure was starched and pressed to perfection — and felt like she could finally receive closure, more than a year later, that he was truly gone.
“When the bagpipes started and I see him, I’m like, ‘OK. OK, I get it. He’s not coming home again. He’s not, I know,’” Chiqui- ta said. “But just seeing all those faces, and I mean, they were all smiling, you can just tell that they loved their jobs. And [it helped] to know that this many people lost their loved ones.”
Motorcycles in the Ride to Remember feature photos and information about individual fallen officers.
As Shah watched the emotion from the survivors in Chicago, he had that feeling that always nagged at him the ride.
“Are we really doing the right thing of bringing these emo- tions back again?” he mused. “Yes, we are. Every single stop we did this year and last year, the survivors thanked us for doing it and remembering their loved ones. That’s what it’s about.”
As Chiquita stood at that trailer, studying the photo of Ron- ald, she reached up and gently grazed his cheek with her hand. It was that final touch with her husband, which COVID-19 had ripped away from them.
“They put him up there, and I was able to touch my baby,” Chiquita expressed. “Thanks to J.C., I got to stand in front of this trailer and know that I was still Mrs. Newman.”
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