Watch Funeral, Procession for Slain Mo. Police Officer

By Jeff Lehr

Source The Joplin Globe, Mo.

JOPLIN, MO—More than 2,000 people, many of them law enforcement officers, firefighters and other first responders from all over the Four-State Area, gathered Tuesday to honor fallen Joplin police Cpl. Benjamin Cooper at his funeral service on the Missouri Southern State University campus.

The Rev. Brian Henderson, a former Joplin police officer who worked for years alongside Cooper, delivered one of the eulogies. He told the crowd at the start of the service in the Leggett & Platt Athletic Center that there has been a single common question everybody has been asking since Cooper and two other Joplin police officers were shot in the line of duty a week ago Tuesday.

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"The question is: Why?" Henderson said. "Why? Why did this happen?"

Why here in Joplin? Why were Cooper's and Officer Jake Reed's lives claimed in such a tragic fashion, and why was Officer Rickey Hirshey left seriously injured?

Henderson suggested the only answer to those questions may lie in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes.

"We may never know the reason this side of heaven," Henderson said. "But we have a promise, we have a promise in the word of God that there is a reason for everything that takes place under heaven."

A second eulogist, the Rev. John Newberry, told mourners that Cooper, a 46-year-old husband with two daughters, answered several calls in his life. He was called to serve God at a young age and was baptized by Newberry at the age of 14.

Newberry said a second calling — to serve his country for eight years in the U.S. Army after graduating from Carl Junction High School — was followed by a third to serve the community of Joplin as a police officer for the better part of 19 years.

Police Chief Sloan Rowland called Cooper "rock-solid" and "my trusted friend and adviser" in the thoughts he shared at the service. Rowland told how he had grown close with Cooper, often working the same shift and serving together on a SWAT team.

Later in their careers, when Rowland became police chief, he found himself often bouncing ideas off "Coop" before implementing them in the department. He said Cooper's opinions and knowledge of how something would be received by his fellow officers was always of great use to him.

Rowland, Henderson and fellow Officer Randy Black described Cooper as a highly skilled officer, excellent at training younger officers and a man who would let others know exactly what he thought of them, which might not always be favorable. But when it came down to police work, he always "had your back no matter what," Henderson said.

Henderson also said Cooper's impact on the lives of others was evident "in the number of faces I've seen of former Joplin officers" who came from all over the country to honor him at his funeral.

Officers from numerous police and sheriff's departments and first responders participated in Tuesday's ceremonies, which included some opening bagpipes and drum music provided by members of the Topeka and Kansas City, Kansas, police departments and the International Firefighters Association during the seating of guests.

There were officers present from as far away as Chicago; Wichita, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Springdale, Arkansas; as well as Springfield, Carthage, Carl Junction, Webb City and many other communities in the region.

Rowland recalled during his eulogy how Cooper "never wavered in his dedication as a police officer."

"He tried to get away from it once and couldn't," Rowland said in apparent reference to a stint the fallen officer served as a deputy in Colorado before returning to police work in Joplin in 2013.

"Coop made the ultimate sacrifice for this community, for his family and for his brothers and sisters in the Joplin Police Department," Rowland said in closing.

He added that Cooper will be sorely missed and addressed his final words directly to his friend.

"We have the watch over the city," Rowland told him. "And we have the watch over your family."

The crowd filed out at the close of the funeral service, with officers from all departments forming ranks outside the athletic center for one last radio call, a 21 Bells ceremony (a three-volley salute executed by a seven-member Honor Guard Rifle Team from the Greene County Sheriff's Department), a flyover by helicopters, the bearing of the fallen officer to a waiting hearse after the folding of the flag that draped his casket, and the playing of taps by a bugler from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department.

"This is the last call for Joplin Police Department Cpl. Benjamin Cooper, radio 222," the dispatcher called for all to hear. "Cpl. Cooper is out of service one last time. Rest easy, brother, we have the watch from here."

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Visit The Joplin Globe (Joplin, Mo.) at www.joplinglobe.com

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