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Partners in life, partners in death By PAULO LIMA of The Tampa Tribune TAMPA - The names of slain Tampa Detectives Randy Bell and Ricky Childers, already etched into the consciousness of the community, are carved into a granite slab at the memorial for fallen officers at police headquarters.
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More stories, audio and video in our special multimedia section Running her fingers through the cool, grainy grooves that spell out her son's name in black granite, Jean Turner feels the sobering reality that her son Ricky is gone.
``In your heart, you don't want to believe it's true, but when you touch those names, you know it's real,'' Turner said.
She was among a handful of relatives and police officers who ignored a melancholy, early morning drizzle Wednesday to watch an engraver etch the names of slain police detectives Randy Bell and Ricky Childers on the memorial in front of police headquarters.
Bell and Childers became the 23rd and 24th names added to the ``Roll Call of Honor,'' a list of fallen officers carved into two tablets flanking the monument. The plan had been to add any new names to alternating sides, but department officials couldn't bring themselves to separate the men.
A stencil bears the names of two slain detectives that were added to the memorial Wednesday. The honor roll now has 24.
Photos by JAY NOLAN/Tampa Tribune``They were partners in life and they'll be partners in death,'' said Lt. Robert Pennington, chairman of the department's memorial committee.
The feeling wasn't limited to the tightknit police fraternity, which views the men as brothers, but extended to Childers' blood relatives.
``When I brought the roses, I could not just bring one for Ricky,'' Turner said. ``I had to bring one for Randy, too.''
A few hours after the names were added, the officers' widows, Donna Bell and Vickie Childers, came out for their first glimpse at the revised memorial. The women thanked the community and police department for helping them through the crisis.
Vickie Childers also blasted Bernice Bowen, girlfriend of Hank Earl Carr, the man who killed Bell, Childers and Florida Highway Patrol Trooper James B. Crooks during a rampage May 19.
Carr gave police a fake name as Bell and Childers questioned him in the shooting death of Bowen's son, Joey. Bowen never told police about Carr's true identity.
``The lady that held back information that caused this to happen to our husbands - I really hope she's not sleeping well at night because she had the information in her hands to stop this and she didn't do it,'' she said.
Donna Bell was both honored and saddened at the sight of her husband's name on the memorial.
Vickie Childers, left, and Donna Bell, widows of the slain detectives, are at the memorial for the engraving of the names. Bell said she was saddened yet proud to be an officer's wife.
``Every day I pray that every other wife of an officer or any other public servant will be safe, but I also understand that feeling of being proud, proud to be the wife of a policeman because Randy would have wanted it that way and so would Ricky,'' she said.
In less than an hour, the names were sandblasted onto the monument, directly beneath the name of Porfirio Soto, the last Tampa officer shot to death on duty in 1988. Bell and Childers became the 15th and 16th officers on the monument who were killed by gunfire, Pennington said.
Seven others died in traffic accidents, one suffered a heart attack and one - Officer Norris Epps - died in a helicopter crash in 1995.
``It makes me proud to see my dad up there with all of those other great cops who died in the line of duty,'' said Childers' 23-year-old son, Ricky II.
Like his grandmother, Ricky II said he wanted to see his father's name added to the memorial as a positive closing in a nightmarish week.
He planned to visit the memorial often and stay in touch with his fathers' other family - the men and women of the homicide squad.
Childers' mother, 68, is a swift- talking woman whose straightforward manner implies she might have taught her son a thing or two about questioning criminals. But her voice softens with fondness as she recalls her oldest son who had a passion for stuffed cabbage. Turner still lives in the Plant City home where Ricky Childers grew up riding horses and playing football in a field that borders Interstate 4.
By 6 a.m. the names Bell and Childers gleamed whiter than others, which had been weathered by time. As Pennington hosed away bits of granite on the sidewalk, he hoped unrealistically never to perform the grim task again.
``We just never want to forget them or any of the other 22 names on there,'' Pennington said.
Pennington, who also serves as an informal department historian, pointed out that the first man named on the monument, Officer John McCormick, died less than 100 yards from the memorial site.
In 1895, McCormick was answering a disturbance call at a bar near the corner of Franklin Street and Lafayette, which has since been renamed Kennedy Boulevard. As McCormick arrested a woman, her boyfriend shot him to death.
The memorial was designed by artist J.J. Watts in 1995 and bears a poem on the back written by retired Los Angeles Police Detective George Hahn.
Titled ``The Monument,'' the last verse reads:
``I never dreamed it would be me, and with heavy heart and bended knee, I ask for all here from the past; Dear God, let my name be the last.
Paulo Lima covers law enforcement in Hillsborough County and can be reached at (813) 885-5437.
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