By Huey Freeman
The Herald-Review
DECATUR, Ill. – Robin Vogel, a 37-year-old police officer who loved to spend time with her son, play softball and listen to Jimmy Buffett, was cut down in the prime of her life by a drunken driver nine years ago.
Deputy Pat Smith, who joined the Macon County Sheriff’s office three months later, recently discovered that Central Illinois did not have an event to honor officers such as Vogel.
Vogel, who also served as a training and diversity officer, was killed in a traffic accident while on patrol at Main Street and Pershing Road.
“I recently started looking for runs for fallen officers,” said Smith, who began running about two years ago. “The only one close is in Chicago. I thought this would be a great way to honor Robin Vogel and the sacrifices she made.”
Smith connected with Decatur patrol officer Steve Hagemeyer, a good friend of Vogel’s, and Sunny Riley, Robin’s younger sister, to organize a memorial run. The 5K event will be at 2 p.m. Saturday in Nelson Park.
Money collected at the event will be used for a scholarship fund in Robin’s honor.
“The most important thing is that we don’t want people to forget,” Smith said. “She made the ultimate sacrifice, and she shouldn’t be forgotten.”
Robin Vogel, who had served for 6½ years, was the first Decatur police officer killed in the line of duty in 93 years. An officer was murdered at Cerro Gordo and Short streets while on patrol near the rail yard in 1912.
Riley said that when Smith contacted her about the run in her sister’s honor, she jumped aboard right away.
“I love the idea,” Riley said, adding that she used to run 5K races. “To raise money for a scholarship in her name, that’s exciting.”
Vogel, who was born in Arlington Heights and raised in the small town of Mackinaw, worked as a dispatcher in Springfield before she was hired by Decatur police in 1999. She earned an associate degree in criminal justice at Lincoln Land College.
“She loved being a dispatcher, but she just decided she wanted to be at the other end of it, being out in the community being a police officer, out there helping people,” Riley said.
As much as she liked her dispatcher job, she enjoyed working as a third-shift patrol officer even more.
“She loved it,” Riley said. “She liked that she made a difference helping people in trouble.”
Outside of work, Vogel especially liked to go places with her son.
“He was her first priority,” Riley said of Alex West, who was 15 at the time of her death. “The best thing she liked was spending time with him and doing things with him.”
Softball was a passion for Vogel, who played on her high school team and for years afterward.
Robin was also known for her tremendous gift for friendship.
“She had a lot of friends,” Riley said. “I don’t know how she had time for herself. She was always doing things with her friends. She loved going to Jimmy Buffett concerts. She loved her dog, Flabby Abby the Yellow Labby, a senior citizen dog.”
Vogel’s close friends on the police department included Steve Hagemeyer, who joined the department one year before her. They worked third shift together, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., sometimes in adjoining districts.
“She was an all-around great person,” Hagemeyer said. “She’d so anything for anybody. She had this way about her that anybody could get along with her.”
Many of the city’s most violent crimes occur during third shift.
“Robin did her job well,” Hagemeyer recalled. “If you needed a backup, she’d be the first one there. She definitely wasn’t afraid of anything. If you needed something, she was there for you.”
Vogel’s fatal accident occurred at 4:03 a.m. Oct. 1, 2005. She was sitting at a red light at Pershing and Main when the light turned green. As soon as she pulled into the intersection, heading west, a southbound car traveling at a high rate of speed crashed into her patrol car.
The 24-year-old male driver was pronounced dead at the scene. His blood alcohol content was measured at 2½ times the legal limit of 0.08 percent to drive in Illinois.
Vogel, who never regained consciousness, died two days later in an Urbana hospital.
“Her getting killed opened my eyes to DUI issues,” Hagemeyer said.
Police officers from throughout the state attended Vogel’s funeral at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church and the burial at Calvary Cemetery. Hundreds of people lined the streets as the lengthy funeral procession passed, including the entire student body of Parsons School.
“It was amazing to see how many people came out to honor her,” Riley said. “The police department stepped up to support the family. I can see why she liked it so much. It is an amazing group of people. I wish I could have met them more under better circumstances. It will be nice to meet everybody else and get to know them a little better.”
Copyright 2014 The Herald-Review