Dedication to Fallen Officers

The following was presented at the 2016 Training Institute by Bruce Groenewegen. It is being reposted here with permission.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to draw your attention to the vacant table setting at the front of the room. Many of you already know what this symbolises. Some of you may not. You will notice that the table is set with an unadorned cap with a blue checked band, a pair of white gloves, a red rose, a plate with lemon and salt and a folded flag.

This place in the room is dedicated to the memory of our fallen brothers and sisters. It represents a place that, I’m sure, occupies a part of all our hearts. It represents that although they are gone, their sacrifice is never forgotten, and their spirit always lives in, and through, us.

The cap is without a badge. The flag is not a national flag, simply a blue stripe on a black background. This is because when one of our brothers or sisters fall, no matter where in the world, every member of our Blue Family shares the grief of losing them. The single red rose in the vase signifies the blood that many have shed in sacrifice and the lemon signifies the bitter fate that has befallen them. The salt on the plate: symbolic of the countless fallen tears of the families, and brothers and sisters left behind to close the ranks and hold the line.

Perhaps this table, in a way, also represents that little part of each of us that dies just a little more when we see what people will do to each other for fun or profit or over a ten dollar cloth patch, those of us left behind to hold the line.

This has been a horrendous year for law enforcement being targeted by criminals, particularly in the USA. I’d like to acknowledge, particularly here in Kansas City, where the grief is fresh, the losses your departments have suffered this year.

So, as this week progresses, please, spare a moment each day to remember those who died being what we all stand for: the Thin Blue Line. For now, may I ask you to be upstanding and observe a minute’s silence in honour of all of those who have given their all.