‘They gave their all to make sure we are safe’

As she does every year, Kay Lindemann Allen attended the Hono­lulu Police Department’s Remembrance walk and memorial ceremony Monday evening to honor the memory of her father and to show solidarity with the family members of other officers who have died in the line of duty.

The rituals, prayers and speeches vary little if at all from year to year, but they never fail to stir the emotions of a woman who has spent nearly a half-century living with both the gilded memories of who her father was and the cold understanding of the brutal way in which he died.

"I miss my dad a lot," Lindemann Allen said. "After 45 years you’d think that I wouldn’t, but I do."

On Oct. 30, 1968, Ernest Lindemann, a 56-year-old radio engineer who spent his evenings serving as an unpaid reserve officer, was escorting a woman to retrieve clothes from her residence at the old Queen’s Hotel. The woman’s husband attacked Lindemann, grabbed his gun and shot him five times.

Lindemann died at the scene.

"It sounds crazy, but every time I pass by there, I talk to my father," Lindemann Allen said.

The hotel was just a few blocks away from the state Capitol, where Monday’s ceremony was held.

Hundreds of officers and family members walked from the HPD headquarters on Bere­ta­nia Street to the Capitol.

In attendance were Gov. David Ige, Hono­lulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, City Councilmen Trevor Ozawa and Brandon Ele­fante, and Navy Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"Tonight we are honoring those who gave their last full measure of devotion," said Caldwell, invoking a term President Abraham Lincoln coined in his Gettysburg Address. "I don’t like to say ‘ultimate sacrifice’ because what did they sacrifice? They gave their all to make sure we are safe in this great place."

HPD Chief Louis Kea­loha acknowledged the service provided by all police officers and the concern and anxiety that their families experience, calling law enforcement "a calling that involves the entire family."

From her wheelchair, Lindemann Allen listened as the names of all 47 Hono­lulu officers who have died in the line of duty were read aloud, from a constable known only as Kaau­lana who died while intervening in a domestic disturbance in 1851, to her father, to solo bike officer Chad Mori­moto, who died while training in 2012.

Nearby, the great-grandchild Ernest Lindemann never got to meet ran about blissfully unaware of why he was there.

"My father loved what he did," Lindemann Allen said. "I tell my son that if he were here he’d be working with him on his car. He’d be spoiling my daughter. And he’d definitely be spoiling his great-grandchildren."