Major Robert Trippeer (Retired)

I'm honored to be here today to memorialize Robert Rosenbloom.  I thought after 30 years the emotions on this incident would get easier to handle, but they never have.  I can honestly say that days have gone by in these 30 years that there have been very few days that I haven't thought about him.  In the different eras over these three decades, I have tried to realize what he would be doing.  Because of this incident, he hasn't been there for the graduation of his kids, their sports events, the activities they have been involved in, and anniversaries, each of these things are mile posts you go by in life.  It seems like every day I think of something that brings him to mind, especially the incidents that have happened in New York this past week.  I wasn't sure I could get up here and keep my emotions, and I may not.

I first met Bob at the old railroad station at Mesilla Park in Las Cruces in the summer of 1965.  At that time, that building was the district office for District 4... New Mexico State Police District 4 office.  We were there to take our written test and our oral interviews for the New Mexico State Police.  We spent the whole day in that building.  There were 13 or 14 of us that walked in, and three of us walked out with appointments to go to the academy as it is called now.  It was called recruit school then at Glorietta, New Mexico.

On September 6, 1965, we went to rookie school together and graduated on November 6, 1965.  At that time the minimum age to be commissioned with the New Mexico State Police was 23 years of age.  They did allow people to attend the school who weren't that old, but they could not be commissioned until they were 23.  Bob was one of those younger recruits, so he went to work as a dispatcher... what we called dispatchers then are communication equipment operators now... at the district office there in Las Cruces until he became 23 in April of 1966.  Then we were both assigned to the South patrol on Interstate 10 in Las Cruces at that time.  We did what most rookies did... we made our mistakes.  There were certain people who kept us on the straight and narrow.  One of them is standing back there with the cowboy hat on... Mr. Ken Shockey.  These guys were ten years or more our senior and were our mentors.  Ken and Bob Schmerheim... Bob Schmerheim was our sergeant.  We were almost like children, and we needed parents in our lives.  They made us what we were in our careers.  Bob Schmerheim was the sergeant, and he commanded the infamous "F Troop."  That was a group of officers who worked on two patrols who were assigned under him, and it was a real cohesive group.  All of us rookies wanted to be just like him when we grew up. 

Since Bob and I were both single at that time, we spent some off duty time together too.  While we were roaming around and hitting the night spots at Las Cruces on one particular night, I was with him when he met Linda.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail of that meeting, because it will probably embarrass both of us.  A few months later I was in his wedding to Linda.

In the summer of '67 he transferred to Alamogordo, and in '68 I came up here to Albuquerque.  Later he came in to Albuquerque and he worked the North Valley, and I worked the South Valley.  Eventually we were both assigned Interstate 40 West, the patrol toward Grants out of Albuquerque.

While we were in Albuquerque, Bob and I became probably as close as brothers.  I considered him just like a brother, actually I was closer to him than my own brother because my own brother lived 1500 miles away.  Bob and I both bought homes up in Paradise Hills that were two blocks away .  We socialized on a weekly basis, so he was really as close as I ever came to anybody who wasn't a part of my family.

During the time that he and I were in Albuquerque, we weathered what I call the wars of Albuquerque.  That was a pretty militant era... '69, '70, '71 era.  We worked the take over of the student union building at UNM (University of New Mexico) together, the riots of Albuquerque, and several other minor demonstrations here in Albuquerque at that time.

Bob had a work ethic that most police administrators would love to be able to instill in all their officers.  This man had no quit in him.  If he was out working a wreck in the middle of the night, and coming back home and ran into something that he thought should be checked, he checked it.  That was exactly what he was doing on the night he was killed.

I think most of us or all of us in that era had that type of work ethic because it was instilled in us that way. There was no such thing in that day as the Fair Labor Standards Act.  We went out and did the job until the job was done.  This was drilled into us from day one in the New Mexico State Police by the veteran officers who sort of brought us up in the State Police.  I think the department has a reputation that is directly attributable to these officers such as Bob who made the supreme sacrifice... him and the ones who came after him and the one or two before him.  We base our whole work ethic on these guys that came before us.  Hopefully we have instilled some of that in these guys who have come after us.

I would just like to say, may Robert Rosenbloom's memory live forever.

Thank you.

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