'We go on, but we don't forget'

A former New York City officer reminds local police about the pride and the danger of the job.

[Times photos: Carrie Pratt] Terrell A. Skinner, a St. Petersburg robbery detective, salutes as the flag is raised at the service for law officers killed in the line of duty. There have been 20 in Pinellas history.

By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 16, 2002

LARGO -- When Tom Dawe was in the police academy more than 30 years ago, one of his classmates was walking past a tavern one day when he saw a man inside pull a knife. The young officer tried to break up the fight. He was stabbed. He died.

Years later, Dawe's partner in a New York Police Department plainclothes anticrime unit was fatally shot by a suspect.

A good friend of Dawe's who worked the 77th precinct also was shot in the line of duty. He did not die but had to retire because of the hundreds of pellets that lodged in his body from the shotgun blast. Dawe transferred and took his spot.

Tom Dawe choked up when he spoke about his firefighter cousin who died Sept. 11.

And last Sept. 11, Dawe's 31-year-old cousin -- who quit a high-paying business job to follow in his father's footsteps and become a New York City firefighter -- sped to the World Trade Center. Fellow firefighters later said the young rescuer was thrilled to be responding to the call.

On the eve of his funeral weeks later, diggers found him in the lobby of the north tower. His body was intact, still in full uniform. His father helped carry him out of the rubble.

Dawe saw a lot in his 17 years as a New York cop. And he felt a lot when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks crumbled the towers.

So when Pinellas sheriff's officials were searching for someone to speak at the annual memorial service Wednesday morning, Dawe seemed a natural choice. Many deputies know Dawe because he runs a deli on Ulmerton Road with his wife, Kathy, where many deputies eat lunch.

Though Dawe spoke about Sept. 11 at the memorial, his experiences also show that law enforcement officers and other public safety workers are in dangerous situations all the time. Dawe lost six friends in his years as a New York officer.

"We go on, but we don't forget," Dawe said to more than a hundred deputies and others who gathered at the memorial.

Twenty law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty in Pinellas County's history. They are honored on a stone monument just west of the Sheriff's Office administrative building on Ulmerton Road.

Fiscal clerk Natalie Doyle has an emotional moment while listening to music at the memorial service Wednesday for fallen officers.

"We are also fortunate because at this hour, we have no new names to add to the stone," Sheriff Everett Rice told the crowd.

The last officer killed was Jeffery Tackett, a Belleair police officer shot to death by a burglar in 1993. The burglar was convicted and sentenced to death.

Officers placed a wreath near the stone monument and held a moment of silence in memory of the officers during the memorial, the 15th annual commemoration.

Dawe choked up when he spoke about his cousin, Michael Roberts, an ambitious young man who had been making $65,000 in his job but decided to become a firefighter, like his dad. He earned $30,000 less but loved it.

Dawe's children continue to serve in public safety fields. His daughter Tara is a New York police officer. His son Tom is a Clearwater officer. And both he and his wife have cousins who are firefighters or cops.

Tara Dawe was supposed to be in court across the street from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. But she ended up working the night before and had gotten off work that morning. Her parents called her while she slept, alerting her from more than 1,000 miles away that the towers had come down.

She dressed and went to help. Her mother thinks she may have gotten to the site much sooner had she been in court that morning. They realize they could have lost their daughter.

"Knowing her, I definitely believe she would have run over," Mrs. Dawe said.

Later, Tara helped sift through the rubble, separating flesh from steel.

Tom Dawe, 52, and Mrs. Dawe, 51, were born and raised in New York, went to the prom together at age 16 and married 30 years ago. They lived in Brooklyn until 1987, when they decided to move away from a growing crime problem. They raised five children. They opened Kathy's Industrial Mart Deli four years ago.

The deli's walls are covered with New York City memorabilia and photos of the Dawes' children. There also is a piece of rubble from the towers on the counter. Near it is a sign asking for a donation to widows or children of officers or firefighters killed. If not a donation, the sign asks, simply a prayer.

The Dawes have raised almost $300. And who knows how many prayers.

-- Chris Tisch can be reached at (727) 445-4156 or tisch@sptimes.com.

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