Police from across Central Pa. honor slain Northern York officers at memorial service

• By Dan Nephin / LNP | LancasterOnline

About 40 vehicles from nearly every Lancaster County police department met early Thursday morning at the U-Haul near Columbia. Around 7:40 a.m., they departed in a convoy, blue and red lights flashing, onto Route 30 across the Susquehanna River into York County, to the parking lot of Living Word Community Church, where the funeral was to be held for three Northern York County Regional Police detectives killed last week in the line of duty.

Mark Baker, 53, Isaiah Emenheiser, 43, and Cody Becker, 39, were shot and killed last Wednesday in North Codorus Township by Matthew James Ruth while following up on a domestic-related investigation.

About a dozen Lancaster city police officers were on hand. Northern Lancaster County Regional police had a half a dozen patrol vehicles in the parking lot.

Officers milled about, talking with members of various departments, as drizzle and light rain fell.

While most of the law enforcement attendees likely did not know any of the slain officers — one patrol vehicle in the parking lot was from Dearborn, Michigan — Millersville University Chief Pete Anders knew Becker personally, though not from Beckers’s time as a student. The Spring Grove alum was a member of Millersville University’s wrestling team for four seasons before graduating in 2008.

“I truly want to pray for him and his family,” Anders said.

Besides turning out as brothers and sisters in law enforcement, Anders said, “it’s a show of support for somebody who made a sacrifice for their community, a show of support for a family. And you know, for most of us, we would do anything to help somebody’s family who went through that type of loss.”

The private funeral began at noon, with private interment. Click here to watch a livestream provided by the Living Word Community Church of the service.

Jerry Snyder, 27, of Malvern, works for a law enforcement equipment sales company, and was one of the several dozen people watching a remote feed of the funeral at Chapel Church, a small church about a mile away from Living Word Community Church. 

Snyder had been scheduled to be in the area for sales calls on Thursday. None would take place, but Snyder decided to stay.

“I came because I care about law enforcement, not just because it’s my job, but because they help us every day,” he said. “Like they said in the funeral service, like they said in the song, you often don’t even realize how much work these guys are doing behind the scenes.”

“I didn’t know any of them personally,” Lancaster city Sgt. Eric McCrady, who is part of the city’s honor guard, said Wednesday. “I know there a few officers in our department that worked pretty closely at times with a few of them.”

Attending funerals for officers killed is a sign of honor and respect, he said.

“We’ve gone all over the place to these funerals. It’s really cool because when we go, there’s a like a renewed type of feeling — even though it’s a terrible situation —- but you see all the turnout of the law-enforcement community, not just the law-enforcement community but the community in general,” he said. The honor guard was at the memorial on Thursday morning.

“It’s a brotherhood and sisterhood in our profession. We’re built on trust, shared sacrifice, and at the end of the day we gotta count on each other.”

Among the hundreds of officers who came from as departments in Colorado, New York, Boston and Michigan was officer James Ramsel, of the Fort Worth, Texas, police department. He was here as a member of the Brotherhood of the Fallen, a volunteer organization with several chapters throughout the country.

“Whenever a police officer is violently killed in the line of duty, the chapters will send a representative down to pay their respects. We give the family a small monetary donation, just cash on hand at the time, while they’re waiting on death benefits so they can help out immediately and just to show some support to the community that it’s not just the local police department that feels this loss. It’s nationwide.”

West Lampeter Township police Chief Brian Wiczkowski, who is president of the Lancaster County Police Chiefs Association, said in an email that he attends police funerals because they’re considered “brothers and sisters, no matter where they work.”

“Whether it’s a neighboring jurisdiction, a different county, or another state, we are all doing the same job. I don’t know about other professions, but we are one of the few (if not only) that gets introduced by our profession. I can be at a get-together and someone will say, ‘This is Brian, he’s a cop.’ … And cops will find each other. There can be a large gathering that might only have 2 cops, but they’ll eventually find each other. You’ll find them standing in a corner talking to each other like they’ve known each other for years. I need to be there for the other officers in that department. They lost a brother or sister. They are hurting, too. They need to see the support.

“And the fallen officers? Their family is my family, by extension,” Wiczkowski continued. “The families need to see that their husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, etc., has family that they never knew. Let’s not forget that they made a sacrifice as well. We need to be able to stand with the family, to mourn with them, to cry with them, and to honor the fallen officers, the families of the officers, and the other officers in the department. The distance between our jurisdictions is meaningless. Supporting family is what matters.”