The Lexington Division of Police Honor Guard was originally formed in the 1970's consisting primarily of a group of Officers with military backgrounds. The unit would come together during times of ceremony and perform the duties of an Honor Guard.
As time went on, the Officers in the unit decided that the ceremonies they were being requested to perform at were of very high significance. These ceremonies included presentation and posting of the National Colors and more importantly to honor the memory of a fallen Officer. As the number of Officers killed in the line of duty held steady and the request for the Honor Guard increased, they came to the realization that although they had performed in an honorable fashion to properly pay respect to the remains of the fallen Officer, the need to formally organize and train was crucial.
The current unit was formed in the early 1980's and adopted a variety of movements in Drill in Ceremony from all branches of the United States Military and forged them into a "Police Honor Guard" style. The unit began to train regularly as they felt the need to be prepared at all times.
Today the Honor Guard still maintains the unit much in the fashion that it was in the 1980's. The Lexington Division of Police Honor Guard has grown to twenty active members that are selected through a variety of interview processes. As vacancies are recognized in the unit, they begin with an application process that allows Officers of any rank with a minimum of three years satisfactory service to apply. These Officers are required to be of high moral standing with a strong sense of ethics. They must have proven a solid record of honorable service with the division.
After the applications are compiled, all interviewees are scheduled to attend a try-out session in which they and their vehicles are inspected in a formal inspection conducted by the Unit Commander. After the inspection is complete, they are shown several common tasks that the Honor Guard is requested to perform, such as posting the National and State Colors. They are then required to perform the posting as they were instructed.
After several events of practical evaluation, the applicants move on to the oral board phase of the selection process where they go before a selected board of panel members drawn from the Honor Guard. During the oral board, the applicants are asked a series of questions and graded on their response. They are then ranked in numerical order based upon how they finished in the total interview process.
In 2006, the Honor Guard competed in a National Competition for Honor Guards held in Washington D.C. during Police Memorial Week. The team finished in seventh place in this national competition. After returning to Lexington, the team decided that although it was important to continue to train, a more important endeavor to take on was to document how they train and bring in other units to train with them.
As time went on, the team found themselves working with more and more units at various events. When this happened they had to have a team that was trained well enough to instantly adapt to a different style of Drill and Ceremony and perform under pressure. Unfortunately this tends to happen at a Line of Duty Death Funeral. As this is potentially the most important task that an Honor Guard can be assigned, the team felt that it was essential to already be prepared and trained to accept this opportunity to honor the fallen Officer and his family with the utmost respect.
This is why they decided to formalize their training and offer it to outside agencies in their "Honor Guard Training Course". This forty-hour KLEC Certified course of instruction covers everything that an Honor Guard would need to know to properly prepare for the events that they would be requested to perform at. It covers material from Why to form an Honor Guard and How to Form an Honor Guard through a scenario based mock funeral to give the students experience in planning and executing a Line of Duty Death funeral. For more information on attending our Honor Guard Training, please contact Sergeant Greg Marlin.
During this mock funeral, there are live participants as mourners, local funeral homes driving hearses' and providing caskets, real traffic control to maintain a safe route to the cemetery and a real plot to place the casket during the ceremony. This course is not designed to show the students solely how Lexington Police Honor Guard performs at events, rather to show them various styles and provide them with adequate amounts of training and practical exercises to prepare the Honor Guard teams to be able to pay respect at any event in the most honorable fashion possible.
