Tomorrow I Will Cry

Tomorrow I will once again gather with fellow law enforcement officers, representatives of our nation’s military service, neighbor’s, friends and family of three men slain 32 years ago to pay our respects. The ceremony is always quite stirring, and has great meaning to those that gather. But is it really necessary to keep showing up year after year and make such a big deal about it? In a word, yes.

I didn’t know Police Officer Waverly Brown, Sgt. Edward O'Grady and Brinks guard Peter Paige. At the time I was a young police officer working in West Harlem, and was relatively new to Rockland County. As a police officer, the notion of terrorists killing police officers and security guards during an armored car robbery (which robberies were almost common-place in that era), you couldn’t help but be emotionally entangled in the incident and its aftermath.

A little over two years later, while assigned to the 41 Precinct in the South Bronx, I again experienced the horrific loss of a police officer from an all too close perspective. I didn’t know Officer Thomas Ruotolo all that well, as I was fairly new to the 41, and I was off the night of that shooting, so I wasn’t intimately involved, but anyone assigned to that precinct felt the pall that cast its shadow over the area for weeks and months to come.

I have attended many a police funeral over my years in law enforcement, and they are always emotionally draining. The closer you are geographically to a community tragedy the more you are effected by it. Just take a look at 9/11 – the nation grieved over those attacks, but New Yorkers felt the pain the most. If you were in NYC that day, or you knew someone who died in the Towers, you felt it even greater. I had two cousins who worked in the Twin Towers – one died on 9/11; the other made it out but was scared emotionally forever. I manned an emergency operation center at the Clarkstown Police Department for several overnights after the 9/11 attacks and had plenty of time to reflect on the loss to my family.

What all these events have in common are they touch a wider array of people than most deaths. 9/11 needs no explanation for its national historic significance. But the death of a police officer also tears at a community. Regardless of what you think of police officers individually, they represent to most of society the barrier between good and evil. They represent the public safety that we all hope for in our communities. Yet every 3-4 days on average somewhere in this country a police officer dies in the line of duty. Some of these deaths are more horrific than others, and draw more attention because of the nature of the death. Certainly the Brink’s robbery and the death’s that followed are the type that drew the attention of the entire Rockland community and beyond. Not just the incident, but also the eventual capture of the killers, the hearings and trials, and even the release from prison, by way of Presidential pardon or otherwise have continued to have its effects on the community.

The killing of a police officer is an event that is quite unique. You never know where it will happen next. Big city or small rural community, it can strike at any time. Just as it did on October 20, 1981 in Nanuet, or as it did in McCamey, Texas, population 1,844 on October 2nd when Deputy Sheriff Billy "Bubba" Kennedy was shot and killed after responding to a call at a convenience store. When you are part of a community and this type of horrific event occurs to the people we trust to protect us a part of our innocence is forever ripped from us. It is such a loss that we need to never forget that these were real people, real sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, real souls whose legacy remains with all those capable of remembering. Just as important is to keep the true account of these events preserved so future generations can learn from the events as well.

So tomorrow, I will stand proudly as part of a community that refuses to forget the events of October 20, 1981. A community that refuses to let history put a spin on the cowardly acts of home grown radical terrorists that some want to trivialize 32 years later. I will stand proudly as a member of the community, as a fellow law enforcement officer who has seen some pretty harsh things, and I will cry. Not because I want to, but because the humanity of the event will not let me do otherwise.