Remembering Auxiliary Police Officers

I know I'm a day behind the times here, but on March 14, 2007, two auxiliary police officers were gunned down by a crazy person just a block from my apartment. I just wanted to take a few moments to remember them. These images were taken around the corner of Bleeker and Sullivan on the spots where Nicholas T. Pekearo and Yevgeniy Borisovitch Marshalik were killed.

I've always been very disturbed by this event, and have felt close to it. I had met the crazed gunman, now deceased, before all this happened, when he was working as a bartender at Raccoon Lodge. And my brother-in-law attended school with one of the officers. Plus, living so close by, I could easily have been caught in the crossfire that day.

I wish I had something profound to say about death, life, and the brevity of it all. It's a mystery I don't expect to solve in my lifetime. But, violence aside, the fear of death is something that we all live with every day. It's scary and sad, but mostly for those of us that are still here when someone passes away. And I'd love to believe that Nicholas and Yevgeniy were some place better now, but faith is a whole different ball of confusion I won't solve in my lifetime. For now it just makes me sad that four lives (including the pizza parlor cook who was gunned down first) were snuffed out so senselessly.