More than 1,000 mourners paid their last respects to two widely esteemed public servants at separate funerals Sunday, one for a Baltimore police officer who died 10 days ago of injuries he sustained in a November crash, a second for a Bel Air paramedic who was killed while helping a motorist during a recent snowstorm.
On a gloomy, overcast day marked by freezing rain in the early morning, friends, family members and colleagues hailed both Officer Craig Anthony Chandler of Upper Marlboro and paramedic Capt. Erik P. Steciak of Columbia as family men who were passionate about their work and routinely went above and beyond the call of duty in their service to the public.
Chandler, who would have turned 28 next month, was critically hurt in an automobile crash Nov. 23 as he and two fellow officers pursued a suspect on a moped. He died Jan. 9 after battling his injuries at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center for six weeks.
Steciak, a paid employee of the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company and a longtime officer and paramedic with the West Friendship Volunteer Fire Department in Howard County, was responding to a call to treat a woman who had been injured in a car accident in Bel Air Jan. 6 when he was struck and killed by a four wheel-drive vehicle that slipped on the ice and snow.
Chandler — the first Baltimore police officer to die in the line of duty since Forrest E. "Dino" Taylor in August 2012 — was remembered at a noon service at the Takoma Park Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Montgomery County, where his parents are deacons.
Steciak's funeral, which began an hour later, was held at Marriotts Ridge High School in Marriottsville.
At the service in Takoma Park, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts stood at a podium above Chandler's flag-draped casket as he addressed roughly 600 mourners.
He could have been speaking of both men as he tried to explain what a familiar two-word phrase, "public servant," really means.
As he faced the roughly 200 uniformed police officers in attendance, Batts said, "Every day you go out to serve your community at the risk of your own life to serve people who don't know you, often people who don't even like you. And you do what you've been trained to do."
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, also in attendance, called such service "an act of love."
In Takoma Park, loved ones described how Chandler, who was born in Silver Spring, grew up as part of a large, closely knit family. After he earned his GED certificate at 16, a job in the security department at a Washington hospital sparked Chandler's interest in police work. He completed training at the Baltimore academy in 2009 and had been stationed at the Northeast District since.
"Chandler had this aura about him; you just wanted to be his friend," said Baltimore Police Officer Pierre Dolcine, a member of Chandler's squad, which called itself the Silverbacks.
When his voice later choked with emotion, 10 members of that squad surrounded him at the podium to offer support.
The group gave Chandler's 8-year-old daughter, Micayla, and his son Jabari, 5, each a teddy bear sporting sunglasses similar to their father's, then paid their respects to his wife, Megan, as they filed past.
Richard Worley, chief of the Northeast District, also spoke, along with three cousins, an uncle and a close friend on the force, Officer James Craig.
"Craig [Chandler] was a rock. He was the best friend anyone could ever imagine," Craig said.
In Howard County, an estimated 850 people came to pay their respects at the service for Steciak, despite freezing rain earlier in the day that led to a 49-car pileup on U.S. 40 near the Baltimore-Howard County line. The crowd included honor guards from Boston, New York and Quebec.
A giant American flag, hoisted between two Howard County fire trucks, hung over the entrance to the school's parking lot, and engines draped in black cloths sat parked near the fire truck that would carry Steciak's casket to the cemetery.
Mourners, many dressed in navy blue Fire Department uniforms, filled the auditorium and spilled into an overflow room at the high school.
Looking out on the crowd, Steciak's twin brother, Daniel Steciak, told them he saw "every year of Erik's life on their faces: Family and neighbors from childhood; students and teammates; colleagues from the fire station.
"It is clear that he touched countless lives for the better," Steciak said of his brother, who, he added, "could think of no greater calling nor nobler cause than serving as a paramedic and firefighter."
Howard County Fire Chief John Butler said Steciak was known for his passion, his compassion, his patience, his willingness to help and his leadership.
"Erik's loss is a trauma for all of us," he said.
West Friendship Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mickey Day said Steciak was the link between the West Friendship and Bel Air stations; a unifying force who brought paramedics and firefighters together across county lines.
"He cared about people and bringing people together, Day said of Steciak, who was well-known for his love of mentoring new recruits. "We'll carry that unification of Erik with us wherever we go," he said.
West Friendship Volunteer Fire Department Chaplain Jeff Sturgess said the way to honor Steciak and other public servants is "by not letting them die in vain. The legacy must continue."
"I know I will see him later," Daniel Steciak said, "in my thoughts, in my dreams and every time I hear the wail of sirens in the distance."
After the Takoma Park service, Officer Ralph Horton, a member of Chandler's squad, paused to remember his friend as bagpipes played under a drizzling sky.
"He was a brother," Horton said.
Baltimore Sun Media Group reporter Amanda C. Yeager contributed to this article.