TOP LOOKS IN UNIFORM APPAREL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

(Craig Ruttle photo)

For a month, the badges pinned to Tristate police officers' uniforms will stay covered in black — a public display of mourning and respect for the man who will no longer wear Badge No. 347.

Seamstresses at a Queensgate company, Roy Tailors Uniform, worked overtime to sew enough of the black elastic mourning bands for all officers who want to wear them to honor Cincinnati Officer Kevin Crayon.

Cincinnati Police Officer Lawrence Batchelor wears a black mourning band over his badge.

|
The company gives them away free to area law-enforcement agencies.

“We feel like we're a part of their community,” said Randy Loftspring, owner and president of the company, which outfits many area departments. “It's just our way of participating.”

Employees delivered the bands to several of the Cincinnati Police Division's districts Friday, the day Officer Crayon, 40, died in a Mount Airy intersection after being dragged by a car.

Mr. Loftspring wasn't sure how many thousands of bands his employees made over the weekend. Sadly, they always keep some in stock, he said, just in case.

Some of the bands were left over from other recent on-duty deaths — Cincinnati Officers Daniel Pope and Ronald Jeter in December 1997, and Covington Officer Mike Partin the following year.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we've had to do it too many times.”