By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – Every time a police officer leaves home, there is a chance he or she will not come back.

That happened for four policemen in Illinois in 2018, all serving the Chicago Police Department: Cmdr. Paul Bauer and Officers Samuel Jimenez, Conrad Gary, and Eduardo Marmolejo.

Dianne Bernhard, who lost a co-worker while working on a Missouri police force in 2005, now heads COPS – Concerns of Police Survivors.

“I don’t have to tell you that grieving is not a simple process,” she said during the annual Illinois Police Officers’ Memorial Thursday morning, moved indoors by rain but normally held at the police memorial on the Capitol’s southwest lawn. “It’s especially hard to grieve in the public eye. You know you can’t just flip a switch and turn off the feelings you had for this officer and just move on. Our society doesn’t really teach us: how do we grieve?”

Bernhard told friends and loved ones of officers who made the supreme sacrifice to give themselves permission to grieve in their own way.

While the ceremony only covered 2018, mention was made of the three Illinois state troopers who have died in the line of duty in 2019.

The memorial also honored two early 1900s officers whose deaths have just recently been made known: Constable Benjamin Martin of Moweaqua and Officer John Shaw of Virden.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]