Colorado Springs – During the past three years, Ken Jordan, a big guy with a quick laugh and a swarm of friends, became pretty narrow-minded. The 32-year- old policeman wanted to get drunks off the road.
On Monday, just minutes before midnight under a moon as bright as his smile, Jordan’s mission came to an end. He fell to bullets fired by a suspected drunken driver.
Jordan, who put aside his lifelong love for his hometown Chicago Bears and had become an unabashed Denver Broncos’ fan, was pronounced dead shortly after midnight at Memorial Hospital.
His death shook colleagues down to their bones.
“Ken Jordan was intense,” said his friend and supervisor, police Sgt. L.C. Morgan. “He was a battle-hardened warrior. He was a great cop.”
Jordan was one of eight officers certified as a DUI specialist, a role he took in February 2004. In 38 months, he made 584 DUI arrests, according to the department.
Tuesday afternoon, inside the city’s police headquarters, dozens of officers lined the walls in stoic silence during a news conference. Later they talked of their co-worker and their friend.
Jordan is survived by his parents, a sister and a woman he had been dating for the past two years.
His family was flying to Colorado Springs from Chicago on Tuesday.
“He had a lot of fun,” said patrolman Robert Patterson, who had worked on the DUI unit with Jordan. “We’d go out to Old Chicago’s once in a while to play pool and laugh. He was so easygoing. He never got riled up. Unless he had to during an arrest.”
Jordan, who often sneaked away with a canoe on his days off and paddled the high mountain rivers and lakes, stood 6feet tall and weighed about 220 pounds, a barrel-chested guy with piercing brown eyes. And that smile.
“So many things made him laugh,” said Patterson. “He’d listen to the Howard Stern radio show, and he couldn’t stop laughing.”
Patterson saw Jordan’s girlfriend at the hospital moments after he was pronounced dead. Patterson paused for a long time when asked what was said during that meeting.
“I told her how sorry we were,” he said slowly. “And I told her how much he will be missed.”
Jordan’s photo will now be embossed and hung on a wall in the room where the news conference was held. He joins 11 others who have fallen during duty with the city’s Police Department. Jordan will take the empty space on the wall below the photo of Detective Jared Jensen, who was shot to death Feb. 22.
Morgan, Jordan’s supervisor, said that like the death of Jen sen, Monday night’s shooting has knocked the wind out of the Police Department.
“Ken was nothing less than a gentle giant,” he said. “And right now we’re surrounded by a thousand broken hearts.”
Staff writer Rich Tosches can be reached at 303-954-1405 or rtosches@denverpost.com.
