Sentimental project from CA. Please help!

[garickman]

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Greg Rickman. I am a disability retired police officer from the Oakland Police Department located in Oakland, California. After 11 years with the Department, I retired from duty as the result of several injuries I sustained from a serious vehicle accident during a high speed pursuit. While pursuing an armed suspect to a shooting which I had just witnessed, my patrol vehicle was broadsided by a speeding motor home in which the driver claimed not to see or hear my lights and sirens. The force of the impact sent my vehicle sideways approximately 50 feet into a telephone pole basically destroying my patrol car. As a result of the injuries I sustained, my spinal cord became swollen causing temporary paralysis in my legs. Although the ER doctors assured me I would be fine once the swelling went down, those were the longest hours of my life. I laid in that hospital bed thinking I will never take anything for granted again. Unfortunately, as life moves on, you fall back into the same old routine and never truly appreciate what you have.

I have always loved custom cars. After my retirement, I became more involved in learning how to build them and really getting more “hands on” in the hobby. For several years I have wanted to build a Pro-Touring Police Car as a tribute to the men and women of Law Enforcement who have been killed in the line of duty.



In my tenure with the Oakland Police Department, 6 police officers were killed in the line of duty. Since my retirement, another 6 officers have been killed in the line of duty. Although some closer than others, I knew all 12 of these officers, and shared a friendship with most of them. There is no doubt all of these deaths were tragic, but nothing has been more devastating and tragic than the death of the four Oakland Police Officers who lost their lives on March 21st, 2009. One of the officers, Sgt. Mark Dunakin was a close friend and former partner. We use to commute to work together everyday. Although living less than 5 miles from each other we somewhat lost contact with each other after I retired. I would see Mark five or six times a year at various police functions. I was remarried about 9 months before this tragedy. The last few times I saw Mark he kept inviting me over for dinner to meet my new wife. I always told him I would be there but then was always “too busy” to make the arrangements. Three weeks before Mark was killed, I ran into his wife at the supermarket and she asked me if I was ever coming to dinner. I promised her I would call to set a date. I never did. When I called her the day after this horrible tragedy, the first thing she said to me was “you know you never did make it to dinner”. Those words will haunt me the rest of my life.

So that brings me to why I want to build this tribute car. I don’t want to regret not building this car because I was “too busy” or “can’t find the time”. I want this car to be special to the Law Enforcement family, especially Mark. Let’s just say this is my version of “Making it to dinner.”

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