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The will to heal Essex County Sheriff’s Officer Kennedy Murray finds a road to recovery that can help all wounded officers n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL The wounds can be healed. If there is a will, there can be a way, and the NJ State PBA has offered its will. When it comes to the wellbeing of its members and law enforcement officers in general, the PBA’s will has moved mountains in the past. So the wounds can be healed. Working with the magical healing powers that come from Cop2Cop and the guidance of its unwavering director, Cherie Castellano, the PBA has pledged to make better the lives of officers wounded on the job, forced to miss lengthy periods of work or retire prematurely due to injury and seemingly forgotten by LODW their brothers and sisters. The stories NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan of wounded announced at the March Mini-Convention officers plans to launch a campaign to identify, remember and celebrate Line of Duty Woundings (LODW). The plans for this are still coming together, but if the PBA has its way, the campaign could very well include a version of the Officer Down Memorial Page, the website that remembers officers killed in the line of duty. The LODW should be equally ceremoniously remembered. Yes, the wounds can be healed, and there can be happy endings. And this, the first of an ongoing series of stories to spotlight LODWs, presents an officer who was wounded, nearly died, made it back to work and lives on, albeit in pain, to tell about the experience and what colleagues can learn from it. Help Wounded Officers Join the PBA campaign to identify and honor officers wounded in the line of duty. Keep an eye on these pages for more information in the coming months. Some of you might know Retired Essex County Sheriff’s Officers Local 183 member Kennedy Murray. He worked in the Detective’s Bureau serving warrants for burglary, assault, robbery, homicides and multiple-drug offenders. He chased and brought back fugitives, some from as far away as Virginia. About 17 years into the job, Murray was assigned to the U.S. Marshal’s Regional Task Force, and in the before-dawn hours on July 2, 2004, the team planned a raid to apprehend a suspect who had shot and killed a bystander in Jersey City. The perpetrator was hiding out in a section of Newark not far from where Murray gr