Streets around Metropolitan Police Department headquarters were closed to give Chief Robert Contee and his family a red carpet sendoff on his last day in uniform Wednesday.
A private ceremony honored his 33-year career that began as a police cadet at age 17.
“Most of us weren’t blessed with the knowledge of knowing what we wanted to do with our lives at the age of 17,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said. “Chief Contee was.”
But a former teacher revealed what Contee wanted to be in the sixth grade.
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“In the corner of the room, Robert Contee stood up, and with all the confidence and assurance that a sixth grader could muster and shouted out, loud and clear, ‘I’m going to be the mayor of Washington, D.C.,” Robert Burrell said.
Contee is taking a role as an assistant director with the FBI. He said one of the reasons is to give him more time with family.
“I’ve seen you take the high road in challenging times when others wouldn’t,” said is wife, Asure.
“You have led not only this agency by example, but you’ve also led our family by example,” she said.
The celebration included a fly over by police helicopters, and, per tradition, Contee made his final end of shift radio call.
He left the audience at the ceremony quoting the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley.
“It matters not how straight the gate, how strong with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
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