Day 167

The Convention Center West was the largest meeting room in town.  In theatre seating it could hold a little over 3300 people.  By 6:30 PM the hall was nearly full.  The mayor asked for help and the center representative opened the east room and turned on the closed circuit TV screen.  By 7:00 people were standing wherever they could find space in both halls and the lobby.  It seemed that everyone wanted to be there for the evening.  Over 350 seats at the front of the room were set aside for those to be honored, the victims and one person to accompany each one.   Penny looked at the list she and Barb compiled in the afternoon.  They started checking off the names.  By 6:55 everyone on the list was there.

None of the amputees were wearing prosthesis.  All of the leg amputees were on crutches and wearing shorts, all the arm amputees were wearing sleeveless blouses.  The word had been passed across the phone chain from one to another.  This was the dress of the night.  It was to be a statement to the community and for the victims a way of honoring the police.  When approached the police chief at first was adamant that the officers would be in uniform but he recanted and allowed them to wear their badge on the belt or chest.

At 7:00 the mayor came to the podium.  “I’m not going to make a big speech here.  You all know why we are here or we wouldn’t have a turnout like this.  But in case someone stumbled in here because there was a crowd, let me tell you we are going to honor some brave and noble people here tonight.  When I set this up I thought we were going to have a small ceremony for a couple of cops with their families and I still wish in a way we could have done that.  But I found that I am a little selfish.  I wanted to be the one to hand the commendation to each of them because it feels good to honor someone who is worthy.  And this group is certainly that.”

“But the morning this hit the paper things hit the fan so to speak at my office.  First I had about five hundred calls from people who really had a reason to be here and protested that there wouldn’t be enough room.  So I started looking for a bigger place to hold the ceremony.  Then a couple of gentlemen I will admit I didn’t want to see that morning showed up and changed my whole agenda.  I’ll tell you how much they impressed me.  I asked them to come.  They are here with me right now.  Most of you know Hector Cortez from the Hispanic Center and Lee Smith head of the City Black Caucus.  And I decided to have a couple of other people here that have a right to do this.  The first is Charlie Merris who is the most decorated police officer this city has ever had.  The second is Otis Smith is the second most decorated police officer in the force.  The other two are a woman and man who were wounded in this time.  I wanted someone to represent the victims.  They are Charles and Lisa Schmidt a defense attorney and a prosecutor.”