Police chief beats COVID-19, resumes command from 'the hotbox'

After COVID-19, cops and medics go back to work

Thousands of first responders have contracted the coronavirus and returned to the front lines. They do it out of a sense of duty to their colleagues and communities. (Reported by The Associated Press)

AURORA, Ill. (AP) - Chief Kristen Ziman spent hours in a cramped conference room strategizing on ways to keep her 306 police officers safe from the coronavirus.

Digital roll calls, solo squad cars, detectives running cases remotely — anything to keep them out of headquarters and away from each other.

Turns out, they needed to stay away from the chief.

Chief Kristen Ziman at police headquarters in Aurora, Ill., April 20, 2020. (AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Ziman, a patrol commander, her wife — a detective on the force — and Aurora's mayor all contracted COVID-19 around the same time. They most likely passed the virus during those planning meetings.

The rank-and-file, however, is fine.

"If we had to be the sacrificial lambs," Ziman said, "putting these plans in place to keep our officers safe, then I will gladly take it any day."

The chief recorded videos from her home, sending them to the officers as part of routine operations plans. She wanted them to comprehend the pandemic's reality on the streets of Illinois' second-largest city.

Chief Kristen Ziman at her desk at police headquarters in Aurora, Ill., April 20, 2020. (AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)

"This wasn't one of those abstract concepts that's happening to someone else," she said. It was happening to some of their own.

The officers responded with text messages of well-wishes, and a new nickname for the station's third floor — the home of her office and the infamous conference room — that makes Ziman laugh even through all this.

They're calling it "The Hotbox" — and avoiding it altogether.

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