Garden State COPS bus trip to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial
Road to remembrance
and reconciliation
On the Garden State COPS annual journey to Washington D.C., family
members reunite 32 years after the loss of their heroic mother and cousin
n BY AMBER RAMUNDO
Roads sometimes lead to unexpected places. Avenues turn
into detours. Wrong turns give way to places unknown. On
April 1, Noreen Powlett and her two children thought they
knew exactly where they were going when they stepped onto
the Suburban Transit bus in Howell to join families for the
Garden State Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) annual NJ
State PBA-sponsored trip to Washington, D.C.
This wasn’t their first time making the trip with Garden
State COPS to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memo-
rial to remember their loved one lost in the line of duty. As
they settled into their seats and watched the parkway traffic
blur past, they thought they had a good idea of what to expect
from the day ahead and the emotions that would certainly
bubble up when they put their hands up against the cement
monument where the names of those who made the ultimate
sacrifice are engraved.
Abigail Powlett is one of those names. In her third year on
the job with the Plainfield Police Department, Officer Powl-
ett, a Local 19 member, was shot and killed while searching a
suspect in 1985. She was the first female police officer in New
Jersey to fall in the line of duty. Noreen was 12 years old when
she lost her fearless mother to this tragedy. Ever since 2006,
Noreen has gone with members of Garden State COPS to trace
her mother’s name on the memorial.
“This year, my daughter wanted to go. I really didn’t feel like
it,” Noreen admits. “I sent the RSVP the day before (Garden
State COPS President) Lisa (Preslar) was supposed to receive
it. That’s how close it was to thinking, ‘I’m not going.’”
Further north on the parkway, Danny LeSane contemplat-
ed his own internal debates as he wondered one last time if he
had made the right choice for Suburban Transit driver assign-
ments. At the last minute that morning, he selected to drive
the COPS bus to Washington, D.C.
“There were a lot of choices on the board for me to pick
from,” LeSane, the driver of the northern bus taking families,
recalls. “I kept changing my mind and at the last minute, I de-
cided I’m going to pick the trip to Washington, D.C.”
Somewhere along the route, LeSane started thinking about
his own connection to the Memorial. It dawned on him that
his family member’s name must be written on the wall – his
first cousin and dear friend, Abigail Powlett.
So, there they were, two family members heading south in
separate vehicles with the same destination. Both of them
knew where they were going, but neither had any idea the fate
Noreen Powlett, second from right, with, from left, daughter Alexandra Fra-
sier, cousin Danny LeSane and son Ezekiel Frasier during the Garden State
COPS bus trip to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
that awaited them at the crossroads.
It’s tradition for the north and south buses to meet at the
Delaware House Travel Plaza before convoying to the Nation-
al Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. This is the crossroads
where the Suburban buses idle in the parking lot while family
members take bathroom breaks and buy coffee and snacks
inside.
Noreen stretched her legs and stopped in the Delaware
House while Preslar took a stroll to the north bus to check in
with the driver and family members onboard. What started as
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