Orange’s Police Officers Mourn Loss of Their Chief : Death: Michael D. Parker, 48, loses his five-year battle with bone-marrow cancer.

The flag flew at half staff Friday, and the 156 officers of the Orange Police Department wore black bands over their badges, marking the death of their beloved chief, Michael D. Parker.

The 48-year-old officer, a longtime resident of Yorba Linda and the married father of three, lost his five-year battle with bone-marrow cancer late Thursday night at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.

He had served as chief for a year before being hospitalized in January.

Secretaries, parking control officers and rank-and-file remembered the chief as a boss whose last gift to the department was on-time delivery of a new, high-tech police station but whose specialty was being a regular guy. They said he inspired his troops by never missing work despite repeated chemotherapy treatment.

“He always had time for you and it wasn’t always work; he had a minute to joke with you,” said Chris Huddleston, a secretary in the vice, intelligence and gang detail who knew Parker for eight years. “Just the little things that make the day easier. He cared not only about the department but the people in it,” she said.

“He never let on that he was in pain, but if you caught him walking up to the station and he didn’t know you were looking, you could see it,” recalled Mike Wellins, an Orange police crisis intervention officer hired by Parker 15 years ago. “It was hard to complain about overwork when you knew he was fighting cancer and putting in 12-hour days.”

Parker was a native who only moved from Orange County to attend college and worked his whole police career at the same department.

Born in Anaheim, he graduated from Anaheim Hills High School, then attended Santa Ana College (now called Santiago). He earned a bachelor of science degree from Cal State Los Angeles, then joined the Orange Police Department as a patrol officer in November, 1963.

“It must have been orange groves and two streets back then,” joked Sgt. Bob Gustafson.

About the same time, he married Kathy, his wife of 27 years.

In 1968, Parker became a detective and later worked as the department’s training manager. In 1974, he was promoted to sergeant. Four years later he became a lieutenant, and in 1985 he was promoted to captain.

When Wayne Streed retired in January, 1990, Parker was named chief. He was four years into his cancer fight.

“The City Council said they’d rather have half of Mike Parker than a whole someone else,” said Wellins, “but that was never a problem.”

When Parker was hospitalized, in fact, it was Merrill Duncan, a longtime retired Orange police chief, who filled in. The City Council “believed Mike would be returning,” Gustafson said.

In his spare time, Parker fed his passion for trains. He worked part time pitching coal into the steam engine at Disneyland, where Kathy Parker also worked. And he assembled a vast model train system in his back yard, where his family and staff regularly gathered for parties and ice cream sundaes.

“It was like Ozzie and Harriett in Orange County,” Wellins said. “He will be missed.”

Besides his widow, Parker is survived by his children, Julie, 26; Michelle, 25, and Jeff, 21; his mother, Dorothy, and a brother.

Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at Backs-Kaulbars, Baggott & Schacht Mortuary, 1617 W. La Palma Ave., Anaheim. A Catholic Mass will follow at 9 a.m. Tuesday, at Holy Family Catholic Church, 566 S. Glassell St., in Orange. Burial will follow at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, 7845 E. Santiago Canyon Road, in Orange.

The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to St. Joseph Hospital Bone Marrow Transplant Research Program.