Discovered medal recalls valor of fallen police officer
Lori Kline has no idea how the New York Police Department Medal of Valor ended up in a bag of costume jewelry at an Akron, Ohio, thrift store.
But she’s honored to play a role in getting it back home.
Two NYPD lieutenants plan to visit Barberton, Ohio, to take possession of the 74-year-old brass medallion and — if no kin of recipient John J. Morrissey can be found — give it a place of honor at police headquarters.
Kline discovered the medal during one of her frequent trips to area thrift stores, where she sorts through discount bins and boxes looking for discarded treasures. It’s an activity she started doing to distract herself after her fiance died several years ago, and it’s become a favorite hobby.
In December, she picked up a $4 bag of mixed jewelry at the Village Discount Outlet on Waterloo Road in Akron and took it home. The trinkets included the medal in its original green box, along with a tiny charm that said, “Made With Love.”
The medal’s owner was no mystery. His name was emblazoned on the front, along with the year 1934.
A quick internet search explained the rest. A couple of websites that memorialize fallen officers told the story of Patrolman Morrissey, who died May 15, 1934, at the hands of a fellow officer.
Morrisey was a nineyear veteran of the NYPD, and a U.S. Navy veteran of World War I.
He was returning from lunch when he crossed paths with Robert Lockwood, another patrolman who was trying to flee from attendants who had come to take him to Bellevue Hospital. Lockwood had suffered a traumatic brain injury in the line of duty a few months earlier, and the department’s chief surgeon had just ordered him taken to the mental ward.
Morrissey and Lockwood grappled on the stairway and Morrissey tumbled down the stone steps, hitting his head.
“He was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital and scores of fellow policemen were ready to give their blood in transfusions when word came at 6:40 a.m. Tuesday that he was dead,” a newspaper account said. “A fractured skull was to blame.”
‘We make sure no one ever forgets, and we’re going to make sure this medal gets home.’ — LT. STEVEN JEROME, on returning the medal given to the widow of NYPD Patrolman John J. Morrissey
The 35-year-old officer left behind a wife and a 6-year-old son.
“His wife was a school teacher,” Kline said. “This medal was given to her.”
An account on a NYPD website said Morrissey had been assigned badge No. 13 when he was moved to the Telegraph Bureau not long before the incident. Two months before his death, he asked to be assigned No. 11 because he thought 13 to be an unlucky omen.
The more Kline read, the more she was determined to return the medal to Morrissey’s family.
She started with a call to the city’s nonemergency police number, which was answered by someone who told Kline there was no way to track the family of someone who died in 1934.
“I think they just didn’t want to do the footwork,” Kline said.
Far from discouraged, Kline posted her find on Craigslist, and then as a comment on a page that listed the NYPD’s fallen heroes.
The Craigslist post received an inquiry from New York City Lt. Robert Lee. The fallen heroes website got a response from New York City Lt. Steve Jerome.
Both men are coming to town to accept the medal.
Jerome’s response seemed a wild coincidence.
Kline said when she left her comment on the NYPD “Fallen Heroes” website, she noticed the last activity on Morrissey’s page was recorded two years earlier. She suspected it might take a long time for someone to see her plea for help.
But less than 24 hours later, Jerome happened across it because Morrissey’s son, John T. Morrissey, had died and left a donation to the police department’s chaplains unit.
Jerome, who supervises the city’s 12 chaplains, was looking for a next of kin for a proper thank you when he spotted Kline’s message in the comment section.
Then again, it might not have been such a stretch for two New York City officers to independently find Kline’s posts. The city currently has 36,000 uniformed officers.
Jerome said Morrissey is one of more than 800 New York City officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
As head of the chaplains unit, he said he takes seriously his duty to make sure they aren’t forgotten.
“That’s what we live by. We make sure no one ever forgets, and we’re going to make sure this medal gets home,” Jerome said.
And since his own search for a next of kin has failed to produce one, it’s possible “home” will mean a display in the police department.
Kline will hand the medal off in person. Sending it through the mail seemed too disrespectful and impersonal, she said.
“He’s in my soul now,” Kline said. “His life will always be a part of me now.”