REGION Ceremony honors fallen police officers

About 20 police departments sent cruisers for a procession.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Since 2003, no roses have been added to the police officers' memorial wreath placed in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church courtyard.
For that, Howard Hartzell is grateful.
"This is very touching," he said of Wednesday's observance in honor of Police Memorial Week. "I'm glad we're not paying tribute to another officer."
Howard and Mary Kay Hartzell's son, Youngstown Patrolman Michael T. Hartzell, was shot to death in the line of duty in April 2003. They attended Wednesday's service for fallen officers as did roughly 250 others, including city and county officials.
The ceremony was sponsored by YPD Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 28, Youngstown State University campus police Lodge 200 and Mahoning County Sheriff's Department FOP Lodge 141.
YSU Patrolman Shawn Varso and Deputy Glenn Kountz read the "last roll call" of the 23 officers who died in the line of duty in Mahoning County since 1891. For each name, a yellow rose was placed in a large green wreath at the center of the altar bathed in soft lights.
Michael Hartzell's rose was placed in the wreath by his best friend, YPD Patrolman Chad Zubal, who saluted.
The memorial service came four days after Hartzell's killer, Martin L. Koliser Jr., hanged himself in his death-row cell.
Closure
"In my opinion, it's done and over with, let it rest," Howard Hartzell said. "There's also the feeling the system should have sealed his fate."
Hartzell said closure is a difficult word for him -- Koliser's suicide is just a small chapter in the closure. The patrolman's father said he has so many memories of his son that will go on forever.
Hartzell also took a moment Wednesday to show compassion for Koliser's family. He said they should be remembered, too.
Roughly 20 police departments from Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties sent cruisers for a procession from downtown to the church. Austintown, Boardman and Beaver also sent their police dogs and handlers.
During the church service, YPD Detective Sgt. Carl Davis sang "Jesus, You are the Center of My Joy."
YPD Detective Sgt. Elrico Alli read "The Monument." It ends with:
"The badge no longer on my chest, I sleep now in eternal rest. My sword I pass to those behind and pray they keep this thought in mind: I never dreamed it would be me and with heavy heart and bended knee, I ask for all here from the past, dear God, let my name be the last."
Two lines of officers held their salutes as churchgoers passed on their way to the memorial courtyard for the laying of the wreath.
The YPD honor guard, in dress blues and white gloves, fired three shotgun blasts into the bright sunlight. A moment of silence followed and then the woeful sound of a bugler's Taps.
Under shade trees, bagpipers in blue and green plaid kilts played "Amazing Grace." They came from the Cleveland Police Department Pipes & amp; Drums.
"This is always an emotional day for me," said YPD Chief Robert E. Bush Jr. "I was chief when Mike Hartzell was killed. It will be with me forever."
National memorial
YPD Detective Sgt. Patricia Garcar said 153 officers names will be added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. Hartzell's name was added in 2004.
In church Wednesday, guest speaker Lt. Nick DiMarco of the Garfield Heights Police Department read the poem "When God made police officers." DiMarco is president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police.
A portion of the poem reads: "A peace officer has to be able to run five miles through alleys in the dark, scale walls, enter homes the health inspector wouldn't touch, and not wrinkle his uniform."
DiMarco also relayed the story of an e-mail sent by a McNeil Carroll Engineering employee that was critical of Sgt. Kevin Kight's funeral in Panama City Beach, Fla. Kight was shot and killed during a traffic stop on March 27.
The e-mail read, in part, "I'm interested in knowing at what cost to me, a Bay County taxpayer, will I have to pay for this monstrous funeral the Panama City Beach Police Department has decided to put together for one man? ... The guy was a police officer, that's all, not the damn Pope. Police get shot everyday, that's part of their job."
DiMarco said McNeil Carroll Engineering fired the man who sent the e-mail.
meade@vindy.com