For police, a grim ritual, sadly perfected

To plan a Philadelphia police officer's funeral is to organize a large and complex military-style campaign, deploying hundreds of troops, coordinating simultaneous movements all over the city, rallying forces on the ground and in the air from a central command post, ensuring the precise timing of each phase of the operation.

"It's very important that it's perfect," says Chief Inspector Joseph Sullivan, who, as commander of the Philadelphia Police Academy, is charged with managing the entire spectacle. "You only get one chance to get it right."

Sullivan, 46, a 27-year veteran of the force, assumed the post in May, three days after Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski was killed. Since then, four more officers have died violently.

"This is the worst honor that's ever been bestowed on me," Sullivan says.

He's in his office in Northeast Philadelphia, eating a lunch of pasta marinara from a Styrofoam soup cup. At 1 p.m., he walks down the corridor past a framed quilt, each square memorializing a Philadelphia officer killed in the line of duty. He turns in to Classroom A, where 50 of his fellow commanders and two representatives of the funeral home are waiting for their orders.

When he enters, the room falls silent, except for the creaking of black leather jackets. They spend the next hour finalizing arrangements for Officer John Pawlowski. His funeral, like the last few, will cost the city roughly $28,000, not including many donated services.

They review aerial photographs of the cemetery, the highways, the Center City traffic grids. They confer about how much time to allow each officer to salute the coffin during the viewing at the funeral home, where to park the buses of new police recruits, and who will make sure the officer's 83-year-old, wheelchair-using grandmother gets an unobstructed view in the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.

Questions are direct.

"Mike, your highway wheels OK?"

"You've got the bagpipers?"

"The tribute car, what time can you have it up to us?"

"Who's got the steps to the church?"

Answers come as often in nods or raised hands as in one-word volleys of "Yes, boss." "Noon or earlier." Or "Got it."

When it's over, they have the details nailed down. And because Pawlowski was Catholic, like the last four officers killed in the line of duty, the routes will be the same as before.

Two hours before dawn, a select uniformed contingent arrives at the funeral home to escort the body to Police Headquarters. There, a hearse, the high police command, the mayor, and a drummer get ready for the 1.2-mile procession to the cathedral. Because these funerals can draw as many as 10,000 mourners, Cardinal Justin Rigali has offered police the use of the cathedral whenever it is needed.

Just after sunrise, 10 limousines will fan out through the city. They will pull up to the homes of the pregnant widow, the parents, and any other close relation the family has requested. Officers will stand at attention when the doors open and will escort the mourners to the curb.

An hour later, highway patrols move into position, preparing to close entry ramps. Helicopter pilots, two from Philadelphia, three from neighboring police forces, ready their aircraft. At the cemetery, after the bugler plays Taps, they will buzz over in formation, and one - representing the fallen officer - will pull away and fly off.

Eight pallbearers, who have spent the last week practicing with a casket filled with 250 pounds of barbell weights, take their posts. They have been trained, and will be led, by Ryan Sullivan, a veteran of the war in Iraq, a 23-year-old from Mayfair who came home with two Purple Hearts and a terrible wealth of experience in the proper bearing and carefully synchronized movements required to carry their fallen brothers in and out of the hearse, up and down cathedral steps, and finally, to the edge of the grave.

Less than two years ago, the funerals were fewer and farther between. And they were simpler, too.

No phalanx of officers with shining brass on their epaulets marching behind the casket on a horse-drawn cart to the thrum of a solitary drum roll. No riderless horse with boots turned backward in the stirrups. No recruits lining both sides of the road to the gravesite.

All of this has been added since Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey arrived 13 months ago.

"I came from a background in Chicago, where a police funeral was very ceremonial," Ramsey says. There was nothing wrong with Philadelphia's protocol, he says. "But I had to make a few adjustments to make sure it was handled in a way that was appropriate."

One of his first orders was that the police command wear dress uniforms and arrive in formation at the funeral home for the viewing.

"When a family sees us coming and that tremendous line of blue," he said, "it's a message that your loved one meant a lot to us and that it's a collective loss."

Over the course of his career, Ramsey said, he has attended more police funerals than he can count. "But it's different when you're the commissioner, when you're the one talking to the families."

Though the elaborate ceremony that follows an officer's death brings comfort to families and honor to the troops, the demands of carrying out these ceremonies has started to weigh on some.

Each new addition to the ritual makes the emotionally draining day longer. And some of the requirements - standing out in the cold or rain for hours in relatively thin dress uniforms - can be physically grueling.

But these are not complaints anyone would dare voice. Once one officer has been afforded the full ceremonial treatment, it is hard to imagine doing any less for the next.

"It's the least we can do for a hero who has given his life," Joseph Sullivan said. "It's just horrible that we've been forced to acquire these skills."