For all he knew, Mayor A. George Pradel would be spending part of Thursday afternoon welcoming two young cops to the world of law enforcement in Naperville, and promoting a veteran officer to the rank of sergeant.
He suspected something was up when he spotted his wife, Pat, and their daughter, Carol, seated in the front row of the packed gallery in the council chamber at the Municipal Center. It’s a place they don’t often go.
Still, it was “a total surprise,” Pradel said, when the occasion turned out to be much more than the inaugural ritual he had performed 371 times over the past two decades.
Attended by an array of people who played significant roles in Pradel’s previous career, the gathering was designed to honor the outgoing mayor, who was a Naperville cop for nearly 30 years before he took office in 1995.
Joining the force were new officers Kevin Roche and Kenneth Razionale, whose families turned out to witness the important occasion. The promotion went to Officer Scott Thorsen, now a department sergeant.
It wasn’t the first time the two had met, though Pradel didn’t immediately recognize the name.
“Did I arrest you?” he asked, glancing at Thorsen’s name on a printout set on the podium
As a 5-year-old, Police Chief Bob Marshall pointed out, Thorsen met the policeman then known as Officer Friendly, the driving force behind Safety Town. It was Pradel.
Shaking the hand of the freshly promoted sergeant, the mayor leaned in and told him, “I’m so proud of you.”
It’s that sort of personal touch, for which Pradel has become known, that makes him a different sort of public servant, John Ripsky said.
The retired Naperville police captain said Pradel has had “a monstrous impact on the city of Naperville,” and hailed his affinity for helping others.
“If you can be another George Pradel, you’ve got to be that tough cop,” Ripsky said. “You’ve got to be that kind, true, loving person that is dedicated to the city of Naperville.”
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Addressing the new cops and sergeant directly, Ripsky invoked the name of the man of the hour.
“Please remember that thing about being a George Pradel. Take care of people,” he said. “There are times when you have to be a tough cop. But sometimes you don’t.”
Dave Dial, who preceded Marshall as police chief, described how he gradually came to know Pradel as a young cop himself, after coming across his photograph in The Sun one day long ago. Now head of the Criminal Justice Department at Aurora University, Dial also lauded Pradel’s nearly half-century of public service and shared a poem focused on the things that comprise a proud legacy.
“Some people will live their lives and wonder if they mattered,” Dial said. “George Pradel will not have that problem. He knows the answer.”
It was clear that the community matters to Pradel as well.
“The Naperville Police Department means the world to me. Naperville means the world to me,” he said. “I see the officers going out of their way to help people, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Pradel stood by as one speaker after another offered glowing testimony to the ways he matters, frequently wiping a tear from his eye.
Doug Krieger, current city manager, put it simply as he spoke directly to the mayor and onetime beat officer.
“You without question have made Naperville a better place to live, to work and to play,” he said.