2020 Copswalk called off due to pandemic
WOONSOCKET – Any other year, participating members of the Woonsocket Police Department would have already reached Washington, D.C., by now.
If it’s the second week of May – National Police Week – you can be sure the team of relay-walkers and joggers who band together under the banner of Copswalk are making the annual trek to the nation’s capital to honor the memory of officers killed in the line of duty during the previous year, joining tens of thousands of other police and relatives of the deceased. At least that’s how it’s been since 2001 – until now.
This would have been the 20th anniversary of the Copswalk fundraiser for the New England Chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors, a nonprofit organization that provides financial support for counseling, legal fees and recreational retreats for the families of fallen officers. Like most other ceremonial gatherings in the age of COVID-19, however, National Police Week events were canceled this year and with them, the rites of Copswalk.
“It’s really disappointing, certainly frustrating,”
especially for folks like Robert Shaw of Providence, said Lt. Edward Cunanan, a member of the Copswalk leadership team at the WPD.
Shaw is the father of the late Patrolman Steven Shaw, who was shot to death by an armed burglar as the 27-year-old officer was investigating the crime in 1994. The elder Shaw had attended every National Police Week ceremony since his son’s death, and he’d been a perennial presence at the Copswalk events in the city for many years, showing up with his commemorative walking stick to begin the 360-mile journey that traditionally sets off, from the WPD’s Clinton Street parking lot, with a bit of fanfare.
“I spoke with Mr. Shaw,” said Cunanan. “For police survivors, in this situation, to be unable to go down and be with other people who have been through that, it’s a tough thing for them to endure.”
Cunanan knows first-hand how traumatizing it can be to lose a fellow police officer to a line-of-duty death.
A former deputy sheriff in Broward County, Fla., Cunanan had a friend and colleague, Dep. Sheriff Michael Doane, who was responding to the shooting of another deputy in 1999 when he was killed in a horrific car crash. Ironically, the other officer survived, despite having been shot multiple times.
Last year, the Copswalk team raised $35,000 for the New England chapter of COPS, funds that found their way to families like Shaw’s and others who have lost loved ones in the line of duty.
This year’s donation will fall far short of what organizers had hoped would be a record-breaking total, said Cunanan. As luck would have it, all is not lost, however, according to Cunanan.
The wide-scale shutdown of the economy and social activities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t something the Copswalk leadership team ever could have anticipated. But because they wanted to make the 20th anniversary installment of Copswalk a noteworthy effort – they started fundraising early and did something they’d never done before – they held a golfing tournament last
fall.
It was the first time Copswalk had held a major fundraiser for the next calendar year’s event during the same one in which they’d also completed the trip to Washington. The tournament generated proceeds of $14,000 and the check has already been presented to NECOPS, according to Cunanan.
“Thank God we had the tournament or we would have had no money to give to the survivors this year,” says Cunanan.
Thirteen Woonscket police officers were committed to taking part in this year’s relay walk and run, which was officially called off on March 18, immediately after the National Police Week ceremonies on the National Mall were canceled. Theoretically, Copswalk could have continued raising money for the future, but it decided to end all near-term activities, including the annual comedy dinner and a citywide tag day – two of its most significant fundraisers.
Given the devastating impact on the economy and the staggering scale of job losses associated with COVID-19, however, the timing just didn’t seem right to carry on.
“We couldn’t in good conscience ask people for money at this time,” said Cunanan.
Copswalk had been scheduled to depart from the police station on May 9, giving the officers enough time to reach Washington in time for the key ceremonies of National Police Week – among them a candlelight vigil for the fallen officers and the reading of their names as they are added to the memorial wall at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
Based on data collected by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Officer Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program, 89 law enforcement officers died nationwide in the line of duty in 2019, U.S. Attorney Aaron Weisman said.
In a press release, Weisman noted that National Police Week dates back to 1962, when President John F. Kennedy issued a proclamation creating it. The occasion is also meant to recognize the contributions of all police officers.
“Every day we as a community ask our police officers to put themselves in harm’s way to protect us,” Weisman said. “Given what we as a
nation are going through today, they do so at even greater peril. Yet, without hesitation they stand tall on the front lines, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
The names of the fallen officers who have been added in 2020 to the wall at the National Law Enforcement Memorial will be read on Wednesday during a Virtual Annual Candlelight Vigil that can be watched on YouTube.
Traditionally, 25,000-40,000 police officers and relatives of officers who died make the trip to mark the austere occasion in person.
“It’s an opportunity to get together with families from all across the country to be with people who have been through the unthinkable,” says Cunanan. “It’s a chance to get together with people who understand. It’s something very special.”
The virtual ceremony is a fitting gesture of recognition, says Cunanan, but somehow, “it just won’t be the same.”