Page 42 - FOP JUNE Newsletter

What the Honor Guard hoped the audience would re- member is the Exhibition phase, eight minutes of trying to express emotion that would be tearfully respectful yet uplifting; eight minutes of dedication, focus and team- work.
“I don’t think we quite realized how powerful it real- ly could be,” Popelka confided. “When you actually get there and see the family members that are here and see their reaction, it’s just like, wow, we did something good.”
So get ready to feel what the family members felt. Get ready for the tears:
Bowen began the presentation by telling how the chil- dren of CPD Officer Dorelle C. Brandon miss their mother
who was shot while working undercover in narcotics on Jan 25, 1984.
Cruz then told of how Cook County Sheriff’s Officer Nikkii Bostic-Jones was talking on the phone with her husband, reminding him of their daughter’s swimming lesson that day a few minutes before being struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on July 18, 2012.
Popelka presented 18-year-veteran Officer Helen P. Cardwell’s devotion to working senior services and edu- cating seniors about personal safety and her leaving be- hind husband Lawrence, a fellow CPD officer, when she was lost in a squad car accident on May 19, 1988.
Franklin had perhaps the most personal story to tell