POLICE WEEK 2015: THE CANDLELIGHT VIGIL
Continuing
to feel his
presence
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
The power, or the intensity, of the Candlelight Vigil at the National Law Enforcement Memorial, seems to make spouses
and kids, brothers and sisters, aunts and
uncles and cousins and friends feel the
presence of the officer they have lost in the
line of duty. On a night when tears beget
warmth and smiles, an omnipresence adds
to the tribute given to these fallen brothers
and sisters.
Christopher Goodell’s parents, Mark
and Patty, now know the power of the Vigil,
as does his sister, Nichole, and brother-inlaw and nephew and cousins and friends
and his law enforcement family members
who all came to D.C. to honor the Allendale-Waldwick Local 217 member and
Waldwick PD rising star who was lost just
five years into the job when a tractor-trailer
barreled into his patrol unit on July 17,
2014.
As those who even knew him for a split
second would attest, Chris has such a powerful presence that his first cousin Eric
Goodell, a Leonia Local 381 member, and
brother-in-law Ken Junta, a Midland Park
Police Department officer, confirmed he
was there as they rode the Police Unity
Tour. That Eric wore Chris’ Marine Corp
necklace Nichole gave him through the ride
only enhanced the difference Goodell continues to make even nearly a year after his
passing.
CHRISTOPHER GOODELL
Waldwick Police Department
“Oh yeah, I can feel
his presence,” Mark
shared as the Vigil that
culminated National
Police Week 2015 on
May 13 was set to
begin. “I always feel
his presence.”
The presence seemed to dry Mark’s tears
on this night. Patty indicated that her tears
were many of joy over the tribute Police
Week made to Chris and how she feels him
“all the time.”
“I feel he gives me strength to get up in
the morning, and every time I sink to my
lowest,” she continued. “I get like an angel
that comes to me, saying, ‘Mom, just go on.’
Life is going to be different but I will always
have him in my heart.”
The Vigil, the wall at the National Law
Enforcement Memorial in Washington D.C.
and the Unity Tour served to extend an
extensive law enforcement family like the
Goodells. Covering three departments in
Bergen County, Ken Junta reported that it
wasn’t uncommon for him to be patrolling
Midland Park, run into Chris in bordering
Waldwick and see the “big, goofy smile,” he
said. “I never saw him without a smile on
his face.”
The feeling of family and presence
intensified for Patty when she met a member of the Unity To