A week ago today, the moment finally arrived for Wortham's star No. 6181 to be placed inside a glass cabinet in police headquarters beside those of the 477 other Chicago police officers killed in the line of duty since the 1800s.
Wortham was a 30-year-old Englewood District officer who was fatally shot in May when four people tried to rob him of his motorcycle while he was off-duty outside his parents' Chatham home. Just days before Wortham's death, the Tribune had quoted him in a story about how he and others in Chatham were battling to keep their middle-class neighborhood safe.
The department found his death to be in the line of duty because he had declared his office in trying to ward off the robbers. Wortham had just returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq with the Army National Guard.
The stars of Flisk, an evidence technician killed in November, and Officers Thor Soderberg and Michael Bailey, who were each shot and killed in July, are still to be retired.
While fielding questions from reporters after the ceremony, Wortham's father, Thomas Wortham III, himself a retired Chicago police sergeant, wiped away tears as he discussed street violence.
"This is too much killing," he said.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor Richard Daley recalled meeting Wortham at a South Side event and "just looking at his smile."
"You can see the energy. And that was the enthusiasm," Daley said. "It wasn't a job. It was a profession. He wanted to serve the people of the city of Chicago."
Cmdr. Keith Calloway, one of Wortham's bosses while in charge of the Englewood District, described the young officer as "truly one of the best of the best." He said Wortham had been assigned to the district a short time before he was redeployed to Iraq.
"I remember telling him to hurry back. 'I have work for you to do here.' And he smiled and said he would be back," Calloway said. "Well, Tom made it back from overseas, but before we really had a chance to put Tom back on the home team, the Lord called Tom home to be on his team -- the police force in heaven."
The elder Wortham said his son adopted the same policy as he did when he worked the streets as a cop -- to be "more concerned with protecting other people."
"We would never think that we would be the ones victimized by the danger of the street," said Wortham, who fired at his son's assailants from the front door.
"We need to worry about the people who are down and out," Wortham said. "Obviously, we have some serious problems in this society. We can no longer ignore those people because they will continue to kill us."
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