When a police officer dies in the line of duty, shouldn't the individuals and the badge they wear receive the proper respect?  If the officers and their grieving families were to be forgotten, that would only make the hurt more painful. Unfortunately, many police agencies do not have the resources to undertake large-scale official funerals.

Since the state of Missouri was established in 1821, it has suffered more than 620 line-of-duty deaths, many of them in recent years. When two policemen were murdered in the suburban St. Louis community of Kirkwood on February 7, 2008, a group of officers came together to begin creating the Missouri Law Enforcement Funeral Assistance Team.

Over the last year, these officers have devoted hundreds of hours to research and to planning this new organization.  They have assembled a Missouri-specific law enforcement funeral guide, have put in place a structure to establish funeral response teams, and have developed training criteria for volunteers who will assist police departments and officers' families through the aftermath of a line-of-duty death.

A convenience store camera had caught the entire incident on videotape – every horror-filled moment. Nicola Cotton, a 24-year-old New Orleans police officer, had been brutally murdered while attempting to arrest a rape suspect. It was a Monday morning, January 28, 2008.

Harry Aurandt’s life was tough in the beginning. His father died before his second birthday. But his mother did a fine job raising him, and eventually Harry led a very successful life as a devoted family man and police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Unfortunately, however, Officer Aurandt’s life would end as tragically as it began. On Sunday evening, December 19, 1921, Harry and Tulsa’s chief detective, Ike Wilkinson, were driving on a road five miles from the city when they spotted a suspicious vehicle and stopped to investigate.

While thousands of others gathered to celebrate the New Year in downtown Baltimore on December 31, 2007, Courtney G. Brooks, a Maryland Transportation Authority police officer, was setting out cones along a busy interstate highway to keep commercial vehicles from coming into the city. Corporal Brooks, 40, was one of many officers that night who were giving up their own time with family and friends so others could enjoy the holiday.

For two decades, Franklin Township (NJ) Police Sergeant Ippolito “Lee” Gonzalez distinguished himself as a no-nonsense cop who had a keen eye for suspicious activity and never shied away from following his instincts. The night of May 6, 1995, was no different. At 10:30 p.m. – just a half hour before the end of his shift – Sergeant Gonzalez pulled over a suspicious vehicle occupied by two men. Working alone, he called for backup, but by the time assisting officers arrived, it was too late. As Sergeant Gonzalez was examining the driver’s license, he was shot twice, and died a few hours later.