‘Santa and Mrs. Claus’ bring cheer to slain, injured officers’ families
BY FRANK MAIN Staff Reporter/fmain@suntimes.com December 17, 2011 3:20PM
Santa Claus greets officers outside the home of Elaine Haymaker Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in the far Northwest Side of Chicago. As part of Operation Santa, Police Supt. McCarthy (not pictured) and a motorcade of officers, with Santa and Mrs. Claus, visited the homes of Chicago police officers who were killed or catastrophically injured in the line of duty. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times
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Updated: January 19, 2012 11:10AM
A caravan of police vehicles with flashing lights rolled through the suburbs and Chicago’s Northwest Side on Saturday.
Some motorists might have thought a foreign dignitary was in town — at least until they saw the “Operation Santa” placards on the doors of the former Secret Service limo in the middle of the procession. The limo carried Santa and Mrs. Claus to the homes of six families of Chicago Police officers killed or seriously injured on the job.
The first stop: Darien and the home of India Gordon. Her ex-husband, Officer Michael Gordon, was killed in 2004 when the squad car he was riding in was struck by a drunk driver. “We’re doing the best we can,” she told Police Supt. Garry McCarthy. “Seven years, it’s still hard.”
Meanwhile, Narcotics Officer Jerry Hoffman stood in a green and red elf costume, taking ribbing from his uniformed colleagues. “At least he has street ‘cred’ on the North Pole,” one joked.
Santa and Mrs. Claus had presents for a son and a stepson of Gordon — including Chicago Bulls and White Sox tickets, a video game, gift cards and a pair of leather boots. Macy’s has donated $10,000 toward gifts, and the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation covered the rest, said former Police Supt. Phil Cline, who heads the foundation and started the event four years ago.
Brittany Doffyn, 25, said she considers the officers who showed up at her grandmother’s Northwest Side home to be family. The foundation is helping pay her way through Oakton Community College. She greeted the officers with her 85-year-old grandmother, Lea Doffyn, whose son Officer Daniel Doffyn was shot and killed in 1995 when he surprised burglary suspects at an apartment complex. “It shows they still remember us and think about us,” Brittany Doffyn said.
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