OAKLAND – It was a day of deep mourning for the estimated 22,000 people, 15,000 of them police officers from all 50 states and Canada, who came to the March 27 memorial service for the four Oakland Police officers killed six days earlier.
Yet, such huge turnout at the city’s Oracle Arena and the Coliseum was made possible also by a renewed sense of obligation to venerate -- celebrate if you will -- the lives of four peace officers and, itself, the dangerous profession of more than 800,000 men and women all over the United States.
Sgt. Mark Dunakin, Traffic Officer John Hege, SWAT Sgt. Ervin Romans, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai made the ultimate sacrifice for the community they were serving. They were killed by a lone gunman on Saturday, March 21, now regarded as the single deadliest day in the history of the Oakland Police Department.
“If you want to take photos and do a story, by all means do so and take advantage of your presence here today,” Bernie Fong, an Asian-American officer of the San Francisco Police, told FilAm Star as he dutifully resumed his motorcycle patrol of the grounds while the memorial service was taking place inside the Oracle. “Never before in my long years in the service have I seen this kind of an outpouring of grief and support from all over the country. We will never see this happening again ….. and we don’t want to see this happening again.”
His fellow S.F.P.D. officer, Lt. Eric Quema, a Filipino-American, told FAS that law enforcers all over the country, and the world as well, fully understand the pain and sorrow of losing ‘our brothers.’
“There are no ethnic distinctions, no cultural, geographical or political barriers … nothing …. when dealing with the grim reality that the law enforcement family and the community have lost four of its outstanding members,” Quema said.
And clearly did FAS see and understand his point. A middle-aged Vietnamese couple visiting the Bay Area from Orange County (Southern California), had traveled that morning to the Oracle from their relative’s home in Suisun City where they were staying.
“We came here to pay our respects for the police officers and to pray for them and their families,” said Kingston Bui, who, along with wife, Catherine, believes that rising criminality all over the world is making police work a most dangerous job.
Fil-Am Randolph Cruz, who has been with the BART Police the last 10 years, could relate to what the Buis were saying. As a member of the department’s S.W.A.T. team, he said he has had some close calls, too, “but nothing remotely similar to what happened last Saturday.”
Cruz, however, does not think the Oakland tragedy would discourage aspiring police officers or actually stop them from pursuing a career in law enforcement. “Many, including a lot of our fellow Filipinos, continue joining the military and the police, and there’s quite a number of Fil-Am officers in the Bay Area. With BART Police alone, we have 15 to 20.”
Sgt. Paul Arguelles, who has so far spent with Los Altos Police 19 of his 22 years as law enforcer, expounded on Cruz’s point, emphasizing that police work is a serious calling, a passion even.
“Police officers put their lives on the line everyday to protect the community in the most professional manner,” Arguelles, himself a Fil-Am, said. “They knew the risks right from the time they signed up. They knew what they were getting into.”
What keeps them in the force, therefore, has got to be the sheer desire to serve the community, according to Arguelles, whose wife is an officer of San Jose Police. But besides the pursuit of this noble mission, he added, every police officer wants nothing else but to come home everyday at the end of the shift.
“We need tougher laws and a better justice system to help protect the lives of our policemen,” Kingston Bui said, riding on public speculations that the March 21 tragedy may not have occurred had the justice system caught up early enough with the killer, an assault rifle-wielding wanted parolee,
Quema begged to disagree, and insisted that finger-pointing or fault-finding would serve no purpose.
“The fact remains that we live in a violent world where the police officer …. that thin blue line …. stands courageously between good and evil,” he said.
