Officer’s Funeral Rekindles Good, Bad and Difficult Memories

Yesterday, Sept. 15, 2014, was a chilly, rainy day in my hometown of Merrillville, Indiana - fitting conditions for the more than 30,000 residents of this community in the northwest corner of the state.

Merrillville Police Officer Nick Schultz was shot and killed on Sept. 5. The assailant then killed himself. Officer Schultz is the first Merrillville Police officer killed in the line of duty. He was only 24 and a little more than a year out of college. He is survived by his parents, sister, grandparents and a girlfriend.

I moved out of Merrillville a decade before Officer Schultz was born. I didn’t know anything about him or the shooting until my friends mentioned his passing on Facebook. But I know how my friends feel and the sadness encompassing Merrillville.

On March 31, 1998, Indiana State Police Senior Trooper James Patrick “Pat” Bartram died on State Road 144 near Waverly west of Mooresville, Indiana. He was trying to catch a traffic violator. Despite having his lights and siren on, a different vehicle crossed Pat’s path from a side road. Pat lost control of his patrol car and crashed into an oncoming pickup truck. Wayne Nuckels, 34, and his 7-year-old son, Jesse, also died at that moment.

I was a reporter at the Mooresville/Decatur Times newspaper on that day. Mooresville and neighboring communities in Morgan County southwest of Indianapolis was “my beat.” I covered everything but I really liked the police and fire emergency stories. I kept a police scanner in my car and had a portable scanner nearby at all times. Everyone with the Mooresville Police Department and troopers with the Putnamville post of the Indiana State Police, a district that included Mooresville and Morgan County, knew me and the car I drove, so they waved me past police barricades like I was one of their own. The shock and fear I felt as I drove up on the accident scene on State Road 144 that day I remember as if it happened seconds ago. All the victims were dead. There was nothing anyone could do.

For the next week, police officers and I bounced back and forth from mourning our friend to doing our jobs.

Pat and his twin brother Mike, who also was an Indiana State Police Trooper, were always at emergency scenes I responded to, either as the lead officers or to assist other departments. In their tailored blue uniforms, they looked even more identical than in real life. Some people said Mike has a rounder face than Pat, but I could never tell. I always had to sneak a peek at their name tag when I thought they weren’t looking. There were only two times I knew for sure who was who. Pat and Mike were receivers on a short-lived semi-pro football team, the Morgan County Broncos. Mike wore number 1 and Pat wore 86. Or it could have been the other way around. The other time was while Mike was doing undercover work with the ISP drug task force and he let his hair grow long.

Pat and Mike were model state troopers, but Pat had little ways that set him apart. About a year and a half before Pat’s death, I responded to a school bus accident and fire on the first day of school near Monrovia, Indiana. Of course Pat and Mike were there. I don’t know if they flipped a coin or traded the duties, but on this day, Pat was handling the report. As with most “dog-day summer” days, this day was hot and humid and I was sweating like a pig – Pat, of course looked perfect – which may be why he recommended we sit in his air-conditioned patrol car while he gave me the details he had collected. While we talked, the woman who was driving the school bus, and who Pat concluded caused the accident, came to the car to give Pat more information. Pat listened very professionally and when she left, he turned to me and said “That lady’s crazy.”

Occasionally, I covered Morgan County Broncos games. A fight would break out at least once every game. As the Dick Butkus wannabes pounded on each other, Pat and Mike would stand near me on the sidelines and watch. “Are you going to do something about this?” one of the other players asked Pat and Mike. Pat replied “I don’t like getting in the middle of fights when I’m working. I sure as hell am not going to get in the middle of one when I’m not.”

I did my best reporting, writing and photography during the week between the accident and Pat’s funeral. I kept up to date on the investigation. Police never found the driver of the vehicle that caused the crash or the driver of the vehicle Pat was trying to catch.

The night before Wayne’s and Jesse’s joint funeral, I called Wayne’s widow to get her permission to attend. I told her I was definitely covering Pat’s funeral and I wanted to be fair and respectful to Wayne and Jesse also. Reporters with the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis’ TV stations were turned away because they did not get prior consent. I stood in the back and took notes. As I promised, I did not talk to anyone or take any photos during the service, but I did take a photo of two hearses pulling out of the parking lot of the funeral home.

Pat’s wake was the next day at the Mooresville Nazarene Church. The line of people paying respects snaked through the church and out the front door. Officers with the Indiana State Police, Mooresville and Martinsville police departments and Morgan County Sheriff’s Department stood at attention at the head and foot of Pat’s coffin for 30 minute shifts. After I hugged Mike I assured him he would not be in any of my pictures so I would not blow his cover. But after the Indianapolis paper and TV stations showed Pat’s picture, the jig was up for Mike.

The day of Pat’s funeral was warm and sunny. Thousands of officers from across the country attended Pat’s funeral in the gymnasium of Mooresville High School. Officers from neighboring departments handled police duties so all Mooresville officers and Morgan County deputies could attend.

Two state police cars gave the crew from one of the TV stations and me an escort to Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Greenwood, Indiana ahead of the miles-long funeral procession. A riderless horse with empty boots facing backwards led the procession from the entrance to the cemetery to Pat’s grave. Three bagpipers played Amazing Grace, Pat’s favorite song because he said it perfectly depicted his life.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I’m found.

Was blind but now I see.

Every officer stood at attention and saluted as a bugler played TAPS and a rifle company fired three shots in the air. An American flag that draped Pat’s coffin was folded and given to his mother. And I got great pictures of all of it.

I wrote the banner story for our weekly paper the following Wednesday. The title was a quote from the reverend who spoke at Wayne’s and Jesse’s funeral – Not Goodbye, But See You Later. A full color photo page from Pat’s funeral was inside. I wrote that issue’s editorial with stories about Pat, including our time at the bus accident.

Pat’s official police photo was hung at the Mooresville Police Department. Every morning as I made my daily rounds I’d look at the picture and quietly say “Good morning Pat. Miss you, buddy.” One of the officers happened to overhear my greeting a number of years later. He told me he does the same thing.

Reporters on the police and fire beats end up seeing a number of dead bodies during their careers. After I covered my first fatality accident, I asked a policeman I knew how he does it. “You have to think of that person as an object. Their life is gone; they’re only a shell. You treat it with respect like something that is not yours, but it is still just an object.” That trick served me well until that March day in 1998.

The code signifying the end of an officer’s shift is 10-42. Officer Schultz and Trooper Bartram have called in their last 10-42 and have gone home.