Police Week 2002

Monday, May 13

Many of you who share both the pride in Paul Jurgens and the sense of loss that we now feel will want to hear about the National Police Week ceremonies conducted in Washington, DC.

There are several events involved with Police Week.  They all involve the presence of law enforcement officers from most, if not all, of the 50 states and several foreign countries.  Many were on motorcycles and led bus caravans to and from a couple of the events.  An awesome sight.

You may not know that there is in the nation’s Capital, a privately funded National Law Enforcement Memorial.  It is located about ten blocks from the Capitol.  Names of law enforcement officers who fall in the line of duty are added each year to the surface of the monument, which unfortunately still has room for many more.  This year, over 225 officers who fell during 2001 were added.  It was not a record year.  Also added were the names of approximately 260 other officers that after some research by the Memorial staff, were found to be missing from the monument from passed years back to the 1800s.  The total number of names on the monument is now approaching 16,000.

Early on Monday, May 13, the families of New York and New Jersey area police officers, who fell on September 11, traveled to hotels in northern Virginia where they met other families from all over the country and stayed until Wednesday.  On Monday evening, all the family members traveled by bus to a candlelight vigil at the Memorial.  Represented there were police honor guards from all over.  There were even “Bobbies” from England.  As the families arrived on buses, an honor guard of about 200 officers lined both sides of the path to the Memorial, handing out flowers and candles to be used during the ceremony.

The weather had been threatening all day.  There was supposed to be torrents of rain and hail.  Instead, as the speakers began at the very beginning of the ceremony, most people in the audience were looking to the southeast in the sky.  They were looking at:

There were speeches during the ceremony.  When the invocation was read, the gusting wind almost immediately changed from about 25 knots to zero.

Eventually during the ceremony, the names of all officers whose names were recently engraved into the Memorial were read – state-by-state.  As the names of fallen officers were read, people from families and police departments stood.  The weather was still threatening at all times and a couple of people felt some drops.  But no rain, no hail.

Finally, as part of the ceremony each person lit the candles from the next person’s candle.  There, was music, recollections, and some pain as we all fought to keep are candles lighted in the wind.

Near the end of the ceremony, we were told that we should extinguish our candles.  As several of us standing together looked down to blow them out, the flames all went out themselves.

Paul Jurgens is still playing pranks on us.