Line of Duty Death Funeral: Service Provider or Event Planner?

When I talk with officers at my seminars I repeatedly hear stories about how they don’t really know who willJohn Cooley be the funeral coordinator at their agency if a line-of-duty death should occur. Their best guess is the patrol division commander or the special events coordinator.

So, the first question is, If a death occurs, who within your agency will be the funeral coordinator? You need to know now. Then the second question is, “Will they be a “service provider” or an “event planner.” There is a significant difference.

An event planner is just that, an event planner. Often it is the agency’s special events supervisor. Police agencies are accustomed to planning special events, even on short notice. The funeral planning for a deceased officer, regardless of the cause of death, is basically a special event. A line-of-duty death is just a very big special event.

The funeral will be well planned and everything will be done right. Then after it is over the funeral coordinator and planning team members return to their regular assignments. The operational plan notebook is placed on a shelf and everyone hopes it will never be used again.

Then there is the “service provider.” A funeral coordinator who provides a service is more than an event planner. As the funeral coordinator they may have an event planner on the planning team, along with a variety of coordinators responsible for specific tasks. But there will be only one funeral coordinator.

• This coordinator will want to know what the family’s wishes are and how they can be met.
• The coordinator will want to know what the needs of the agency’s members are and the needs of their family members and how they can be met.
• The coordinator will want to know the needs of the law enforcement community and the community the agency serves and how they can be met.  
• A service provider accepts the responsibility of listening to what people want, including the members of the planning team, and then tries to integrate their wants into the service.
• A service provider is concerned about the people issues as well as the task oriented issues.
• A service provider stays connected to the surviving family, the agency members, and the agency member’s families after the services are concluded; hours, days, weeks, months, and years after the burial.

The Potential to Become a Friend

A service provider has the potential to become a friend to the members of the surviving family, agency members, and agency member’s families. An event planner seldom does.

An event planner’s typical goal is to insure the funeral is well planned and done right. A service provider’s goal is to insure that the funeral is well planned and that it is not only done right but done best.  

• The service provider does not want the surviving family or the agency members or their families to say, after the services, that there were things they wanted done or to be involved with but weren’t permitted to.
• That there were no open lines of communication nor opportunities for them to express themselves.
• That the emphasis was on parking cars and seating people and scheduling services and ceremonies rather than learning and meeting peoples needs.
• That they didn’t know the funeral coordinator then and don’t know them now.

So any agency establishing a funeral planning protocol needs to identify who within the agency will be assigned as the funeral coordinator, not by name but by position. Then the funeral coordinator’s job description will determine if they will be an “event planner” or a “service provider.” There is a difference.

John Cooley
Policefunerals.com