Ronnie Polaneczky: Widows ask: What price sacrifice?
YESTERDAY, the widows of murdered Philadelphia police officers Chuck Cassidy and Gary Skerski were supposed to speak at the opening day of new contract hearings between the city and the police union.
YESTERDAY, the widows of murdered Philadelphia police officers Chuck Cassidy and Gary Skerski were supposed to speak at the opening day of new contract hearings between the city and the police union.
Judith Cassidy and Anne Skerski were going to head to the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel and talk with the arbitration panel about the demands of an officer's career. How a cop's life can end on the job, in a breath, without warning. How, when it does, the foundation beneath a slain officer's family cracks in two.
The women were going to plead that this terrible, ever-present possibility for police officers and their families be the backdrop to the city's upcoming contract tug-of-war with the Fraternal Order of Police.
The widows never got a chance to speak. The hearings were postponed for the worst possible reason: the execution Saturday of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski.
Another good cop gone.
Another family in anguish.
Another reminder to a wounded, weary city of what's at stake for those who protect us.
By heartbreaking coincidence, Liczbinski's death comes amid annual activities around the country in memory of officers killed in the line of duty.
As we speak, the names of 358 fallen officers - including that of Chuck Cassidy - are being engraved on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. Next week, all the names will be formally dedicated during a candlelight vigil.
Yesterday, a memorial service was held in Harrisburg in honor of officers slain in Pennsylvania.
And tomorrow, here in Philly, a remembrance ceremony will be held at Franklin Square, where flowers will be laid before the living flame at the city's memorial to fallen police and firefighters. It will be followed by a private "survivors' lunch" at the FOP - a yearly event for loved ones of officers killed on the job.
"Our families know that we will never forget them," says FOP recording secretary Jim Wheeler of the 300 attendees who will attend the event tomorrow. "So many of these people have become close friends because of the lunch. They sit at the same table every year.
They've bonded because they've all walked in the same shoes."
How wonderful that these people are waiting to fold the Liczbinski family into their arms.
How awful the reason for their embrace.
Wheeler didn't know yesterday when the rescheduled contract hearings would begin between the city and the FOP.
All is on hold while the manhunt continues for one of Liczbinski's alleged killers and while the city prepares for the descent of thousands of mourners on Logan Square this Friday for Liczbinski's Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul.
The date is the second anniversary of Gary Skerksi's death. The funeral venue is the same as Chuck Cassidy's.
The sad déjà-vu is all ours.
The hearings, whenever they begin, will raise tough questions about how well we're willing to compensate those who put their lives on the line when we call 9-1-1.
I know that Philly is on hard times financially, that multiple city contracts are coming up for negotiating and that our national economy is circling the drain.
But I also know that you couldn't pay 99 percent of Philly's residents - including myself - enough to do what our cops do, in a city so wracked by violence that our own mayor is attempting to create laws that would restrict gun rights in Philadelphia.
Most of us don't have whatever it takes to confront a thug armed with a gun and stripped of the humanity that would keep him from using it.
But someone has to keep us safe. Someone with the stuff that motivated Gary Skerski, Chuck Cassidy and, now - God rest his soul - Steve Liczbinski.
These brave souls and the thousands like them in the Philadelphia Police Department deserve our acknowledgment of the sacrifices they're willing to make on our behalf.
The best way we can do that, after we have given Liczbinski a hero's funeral, is with a contract that lets our officers and their families know that we know what they're up against.
We'll never be able to give them all they ask for, when the hearings get under way.
But we can be fair. And we can thank them. *
E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns: