Hubbard honors fallen police

May 16, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

By jeanne starmack

hubbard

Lou Carsone thought it would be easy to put the words together when it came time to describe the job police officers do.

But it was not, the city’s safety-service director said as he stood at the podium during Hubbard’s first Police Officers Memorial Day Ceremony.

So instead, Carsone borrowed the words of others — police academy cadets who’d been asked: “Why do you want to be a police officer?”

They wanted to help people. To make a difference. To stand between the defenseless and the aggressor. To bring calm to a violent situation.

Carsone also borrowed the words of an airline pilot who was comparing his job with an officer’s.

“‘What a responsibility you have!’” Carsone said the police officer told the pilot.

But the pilot was not so quick to take the admiration, telling the officer that his is the harder job. The pilot can use his skills to get himself and everyone safely on the ground, he said. But, you, he told the officer, have to use your skills and often put yourself in harm’s way to save someone else.

Carsone ended his part in Thursday’s ceremony at the city building with more borrowed words, these from the Bible: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

On May 15, the nation observes National Peace Officers Memorial Day for officers who die saving others.

Hubbard’s Transformation Team, led by area chaplains, organized the first local ceremony and also is overseeing a committee to raise funds for a monument at the flagpole near the police station, said police Chief Jim Taafe.

The city hopes to have the monument in place by Memorial Day 2015, he said.

City leaders realized that local participation was important, Taafe said.

“One-hundred-five [police officers] died in 2013,” said Sgt. Chris Moffitt, Hubbard’s FOP president. This year, “as of today, 41. ... On behalf of Lodge 132, I thank everyone involved in this memorial,” he said.

Hubbard Township Police Chief Todd Coonce called all fallen officers heroes who “gave all,” and said that their courage was not only about how they died, but how they lived every day.

“We honor our fallen by doing our jobs each day,” said Ray Moffitt, who was police chief from 1985 to 2002 and is now a city councilman.

“Serve and protect — we do that every day.”