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NEW JERSEY COPS ■ MAY 2014
A Supreme Sacrifice
Remembering the loss of Orange Police Officer Joyce Carnegie in the line of duty on the
15th anniversary of her passing brings a feeling that all cops live for. And love.
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Joe felt Joyce squeeze his hand as the
ambulance rushed toward UMDNJ Hospital. “Girl, you better wake up,” Joe cried
to his Orange Police Department colleague, partner on the street beat, and
best friend since they entered the academy together four years earlier.
Officer Joe Lane knew Joyce Carnegie
could beat this. He saw the gunshot
wound in her stomach, and he knew if
anybody was tougher than a bullet, it
was Joyce. Joe knew this better than anybody. They had always been described
as brother and sister throughout the
department, and their bond made
Reed’s and Malloy’s or Sipowicz’s and
Simone’s seem like distant cousins.
“Wake your butt up,” he begged again.
“I didn’t know she was shot in the
head until we got her out of the ambulance,” Lane recalls about the evening of
April 8, 1999. “She was tougher than any
guy I knew. I thought she was still with
us.”
Lane couldn’t stay at the hospital. He
left to help find the guy who did this to
Joyce. They had responded earlier that
evening with two other officers to the
first call of the night of an incident on
Main Street in Orange. Main Street was
their turf. “Joyce kept the peace on
Main,” noted Orange Lieutenant Tracey
Wright. Nothing was happening on
Main, but a call came over that a man
was robbing victims on nearby Berkeley
Road. Lane went one way toward
Berkley to respond; Carnegie went
another toward the intersection of Freeway Avenue and Bay Street. That’s where
Joyce Carnegie ran into the suspect, Terrance Everett. That’s where her watch
ended at 38 years old, just four years into
the job.
Lane confides that the heart of the
Orange PD stopped beating on that
night 15 years ago. Many other officers
confirm that Carnegie was indeed the
heartbeat of the department, and that’s
why they take time every day since to
keep her memory alive. To be sure, Joyce
Carnegie personifies the paradox or
conundrum of the Police Week that has
just passed: cops always honor the trauma and drama that comes with every
Line of Duty Death (LODD) and should
be inspired by such an event to elevate
their lives to the fullest.
“Joyce taught us to take the time to say
‘I love you,’ and that we don’t have the
time to carry anger,” said Wright who
was a sergeant when Carnegie joined the
force. “She had that balance.”
Orange Officer Anthony Holmes also
went to the academy with Carnegie. If
Lane was her brother, she treated
Holmes like a loveable little brother. He
keeps pictures of Joyce throughout his
house, and you might imagine why:
“Her death made a big impact on our
town,” Holmes explains. “Officers that
didn’t like each other, all of the sudden,
they bonded. She taught a lot of people
to cherish every day. She will always be
with me because of that.”
May the circle be unbroken
During the 18 weeks of the police
academy, Lane, Carnegie, Holmes and
another Orange officer, Karen Tisdale,
united like family. “Our circle was tight
and everybody knew it,” Holmes said
proudly.
They were so tight that Wright said
most supervisors knew to assign Lane
and Carnegie together whenever they
went out on walking patrol.
They were so tight that when Lane
would get angry at work, Holmes said,
“Joyce was the only person who could
calm him down.”
They were so tight that Tisdale,
Holmes and Lane, like several other
members of the department, knew
Ernestine Carnegie like a second mother. Joyce’s mom worked for the city of
Orange, and they are still so tight with
her that they talk all the time.
They were so tight that they all worked
a side job doing security for The Vault, a
store on Main Street. They were so tight
that the afternoon she was shot,
Carnegie bought Holmes a University of
Michigan basketball warm-up suit
because she loved the Wolverines and
wanted her little brother to do likewise.
They are still that tight to this day.
Joyce had a rather prominent tattoo on
her right forearm. When she passed, they
all had her badge number – 48 – tattooed
in the same spot.
Herein brings us to another wonderful residual of Police Week’s marking of
LODDs: The act of remembrance and
honoring those who made the supreme
sacrifice, and the events that it brings,
creates a unification of police forces that
inspires and enables cops to keep going
back out there every day.
“We always say,