Flashing Lights

Yesterday I was meeting a friend for lunch and I was excited to be out of the house. All the snow we have been having had kept me indoors. As luck would have it, when I reached Wadsworth, a police car was angled so no cars could cross Wadsworth. I looked for an accident but all I saw were police cars with flashing lights while a helicopter hovered in the sky. Police cars moved at a good clip headed south on Wadsworth. I wondered if we were being attacked by terrorists or if something horrible was about to happen. Just then my cell phone rang and it was my friend calling to let me know not to take Wadsworth. It would be closed for a few hours because of a funeral for a motorcycle policeman who had been killed while on duty.

I remembered hearing about an officer who had been on his motorcycle and had been struck by a car. Looking north up Wadsworth, I could see many flashing lights on cars, trucks, bomb squad vans, suburbans, and unmarked cars moving south on Wadsworth. The string of cars with flashing lights looked like many cheerleaders' sparkling pom-poms. As far as I could see there were law enforcement vehicles. The traffic on my side of Wadsworth moved bumper to bumper giving me time to observe the exciting sight.  People standing on the side of the road waved and some held up small flags.The police cars were from Littleton, Jefferson, Adams, Weld, Greeley, Arvada, Trinidad, Pueblo, Wheatridge, Thornton, Westminster, Castle Rock, Arapahoe, and Brighton. There were probably many others but I decided that if I was going to get to my lunch on time I had to get off of Wadsworth and find another route to meet my friend.


Now, that I knew the reason for the mass display of law enforcement, I felt a tightening of my throat and a tug at my heart. What a special tribute! What an honor to have so many officers attending a funeral of a fellow officer.  After lunch, I got on the computer to find out more about the officer. I read that over 1000 persons attended Sgt. David Baldwin's services. He was a motorcycle patrol officer for twenty-seven years in the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. An eighty year old man had tried passing a car and had hit Baldwin head on. I was touched by the long parade of flashing lights and to see so many officers paying their respects.  I had never seen such a display of law enforcement unity for a fallen officer. I also wondered who was protecting the public since it seemed that all the officers from Colorado were in the parade of flashing lights!