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On the saddest of days — when everything needs to go just
right — are you sure your department would know how to
conduct a proper police funeral?
At agencies where line-of-duty deaths are a rarity and
there’s no proven protocol in place for honoring a dead
officer, the skill to do the right things may not match the
will.
Sergeant Scott Barthelmass of the Overland (Mo.) PD can
help.
A 17-year law enforcement veteran, Barthelmass heads up a
Law Enforcement Funeral Assistance Team for the state of
Missouri, one of a handful of such organizations active in
the U.S. In the last four years, his group has helped plan
and/or conduct 70 law enforcement funerals or memorials,
ranging from those for retired officers who suffered fatal
heart attacks to officers killed in car crashes or gunned
down on-duty.
Even K-9 funerals qualify for the team’s assistance.
In a presentation for the International Assn. of Chiefs of
Police and during an interview later with PoliceOne, he
spoke about the special needs of these solemn occasions.
“The way a police funeral is handled is critical to helping
an officer’s coworkers, surviving family, and community
begin to heal,” he says. “Everyone needs to see how heroic
the dead officer was by the way his or her death is
commemorated. You want the family to think, ‘Wow! He did
make a difference’,” Barthelmass explained.
“Yet many agencies, especially small or medium-size ones,
are overwhelmed and unprepared when a death suddenly
strikes. They’re well-intentioned, but they don’t have the
manpower, the knowledge, or the resources necessary to
organize and execute appropriate memorial procedures. Most
times, there’s so much emotion going on and so many details
that are important to cover it’s hard to figure out what to
do on the fly.”
Across his career, Barthelmass himself has experienced the
deaths of seven friends killed in action. “Among them, there
was one really, really bad funeral,” he says. “The agency
didn’t communicate at all with the officer’s family — just
did what it wanted to do and ended up making some very
unfortunate choices. There are still scars.”
In 2008, several LEOs were killed in one month in Missouri,
and as their grieving agencies stumbled through the hectic
aftermath, “it became obvious that many departments need
help when these tragedies occur,” Barthelmass recalls.
A volunteer firefighter as well as a cop, he was aware that
the fire community has a proficient, nationwide network of
funeral assistance teams to assure that fallen members get
awe-inspiring sendoffs. He decided to gather a group of
fellow officers who would help him develop a team for the
Show Me State that would mirror the fire paradigm for cops.
Today, that team, operating from the St. Louis area,
consists of some 10 core members, with the capability of
more than doubling its size as demand requires. All members
are extensively trained in death notification, in dealing
with trauma, and in funeral protocol. The group is chartered
as a nonprofit organization, funded by donations. Its
services are provided free of charge (a similar team has
subsequently been organized in the Kansas City region).
“We only respond when requested by an agency,” Barthelmass
explains. “Our job isn’t to take over in a high-profile
manner. Our mission is to quietly assure that things run
smoothly and that all bases are covered in a collaborative
manner in a short time, like an unobtrusive,
behind-the-scenes event-planner.
“We don’t want most people to even know we were there. We
want people to think the department really did a good job of
burying one of their own.”
Among areas where the team often makes a positive impact:
Family-agency Liaison —
“It’s important that what the officer’s family wants and
what the department has in mind mesh,” Barthelmass points
out. He recalls one instance where an agency intended to
post an honor guard holding rifles at the dead member’s
casket. Considering that the officer had just been slain by
someone with a gun, the family recoiled at this idea. “Too
often, communication with the family gets lost in the
shuffle and bitterness results,” Barthelmass notes.
Crowd Management —
“More people often turn out for a police funeral than
agencies anticipate,” Barthelmass says. “Officers are likely
to show up from out of town and need accommodations or
direction. Over 22,000 people turned out in Lakewood,
Washington, when the four officers were killed there. That
can swamp a small town without the right crowd control.
Disruptive elements may appear too. Religious radicals who
heckle military funerals sometimes target law enforcement
funerals, as well. We can make sure the family is shielded
from them without creating liability regarding free-speech
rights.”
Body Escort —
Usually the family and agency appreciate having the fallen
officer’s body accompanied by a continual police presence
from death through the burial. Barthelmass’s team can coach
and equip honor guards to make that possible. In one
exceptional case, an officer died in one state but was to be
interred several states away. The funeral team arranged not
only for a police escort for the long journey but had a
squad car or fire engine visible from the highway at every
overpass en route.
Street-coverage Logistics —
Police services for the community need to be maintained
during the funeral, but this can strain small agencies where
members of the force, including dispatchers, want to attend
or be involved in the memorial. “We can help recruit and
coordinate substitutes to cover dispatch and patrol so
there’s no disruption,” Barthelmass says.
Photographic Record —
“We can provide a photographer to create a record of the
event,” Barthelmass says. “The family often doesn’t remember
what happened because of the stress and emotion they’re
experiencing at the time. We can prepare a nice CD or DVD
for them to view later and have as a keepsake.”
Memorable Touches —
The variety of component pieces that Barthelmass’s team can
provide seems limitless: Prayers and readings that are law
enforcement-specific, flags from all military branches for
veterans, albums in which people can write messages, help in
tracking down a bag piper or a chaplain, guidance for
helping survivors get the federal benefits they’re entitled
to. “There can be a massive amount of planning that goes
into a police funeral,” Barthelmass says. “We try to think
of everything. We’ve never had a request we couldn’t
fulfill.”
In Missouri and its surrounding states, the team can work
with an agency in person. The team travels with a trailer
stocked with an inventory to meet every contingency, from
fuses for light bars to white gloves for pallbearers to toys
for kids to arm bands and bunting to a sound system capable
of broadcasting to huge crowds at a cemetery.
For departments beyond the team’s immediate geographic
reach, Barthelmass can consult without charge by phone and
email. “We’ve gotten so proficient at doing it, we can help
anyone,” he says, “even if we’re not there in person.” And
if you’d like to organize a funeral team in your area, he
can send useful documents from a 150-page how-to manual he
has compiled and guide you through the process.
“We can’t stop every line-of-duty death,” Barthelmass says.
“We always hope another one won’t happen, but they do. It’s
imperative that we lay fallen heroes to rest in the most
honorable and dignified way possible.”
Scott Barthelmass can be reached at:
sbarthelmass@yahoo.com
or by cell phone at: (314) 565-2480. Access the team’s
website for helpful information at:
www.mopolicefuneral.org
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The
Lie, the Bluff and False Confessions
