Friday, January 28, 2000
Butler County has new funeral carriage new for officers
BY MARK SCHMETZER
Enquirer Contributor
HAMILTON — Police officers deserve the same pomp and ceremony when they are buried as those who serve in the armed forces, Butler County Sheriff Harold “Don” Gabbard believes.
Now, one trapping of military honor will be available here for officers' funerals: a horse-drawn caisson that the sheriff's department showed off Thursday in a brief ceremony at the county jail on Court Street.
“Police officers many times aren't given the credit they deserve,” Sheriff Gabbard said before the ceremony, which included the playing of “Amazing Grace” by the department's bagpipe band. “We hope to be able to give them the honor and respect they deserve when the time comes to carry them to their final resting place.”
Caissons were invented to carry ammunition to the front lines in battle. Now they are used to carry coffins in funeral processions.
Sheriff Gabbard came up with the idea of a caisson for his department about a year ago, he said. The community responded by donating the almost $13,000 needed to have the gleaming black, wooden caisson, with its four 5-foot-diameter wheels, built by Steen Cannons in Ashland, Ky.
The department also needed horses to pull the caisson. The sheriff turned to Lt. Gov. Maureen O'Connor, who dipped into a program that disposes of surplus federal goods and came up with Edward and Emperor, a pair of 16-year-old, 1,300-pound black English shire horses that were being retired by H Company of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, also known as the Old Guard Caisson Platoon. That unit, based at Fort Myer, Va., adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, is responsible for conducting the funeral marches for veterans laid to rest at the cemetery.
The horses and the caisson will be kept at a farm owned by the daughter of one of the members of the department's mounted patrol, which depends solely on donations of money, food and other goods for its operation.
“This is an excellent example of how we can honor officers by carrying them to their final resting place,” said Ms. O'Connor, who also is director of the state Department of Public Safety. Offi cials plan to make the caisson available for funerals throughout Ohio and in other states.
Joe Phegley, whose son, Morrow Officer Jeff Phegley, 22, was killed during what started out as a routine traffic stop on Jan. 21, 1987, said he wishes a caisson would have been available for his son's funeral.
“You pray that it never has to be used for such a purpose,” he said. “The reality is, it will.”
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