Cmdr. Paul Bauer: Learn How Slain Cop Spent 31-Year CPD Career

CHICAGO, IL — Sadly, many Chicagoans only will be hearing the name Paul Bauer in the wake of the tragic shooting Tuesday at the Thompson Center that left the off-duty Chicago police commander dead as he was trying to help fellow officers apprehend a suspect. But the 31-year veteran of the force had served in a variety of roles across the Chicago Police Department that many of those same residents might already have interacted with the officer and not realized it.

Bauer joined the CPD in 1986, and his career led him to work all across the city from the South Side to the 18th or Near North District, where he was named commander in 2015. During his time in that district, Bauer participated in the monthly Coffee With a Commander program, a reach-out intiative that allowed the public to meet and talk with the officers who serve their community.

In a September 2017 interview aired on WCIU-TV, Bauer praised the program as being instrumental in building trust between residents and police, a trust that has been lost following incidents such as the Laquan McDonald shooting.

RELATED: Chicago Police Commander Shot, Killed At Thompson Center

"I encourage you to approach a police officer, because we're happy to meet you, we're happy to have your support," Bauer said in the interview, adding that he received more community members thanking him during his time as 18th District commander than at any other time with the department.

Before he was in charge of the Near North District, Bauer led CPD's mounted division and was in charge of the officers on horseback as a lieutenant.

“There’s no better way of moving a crowd than with a horse,” he told CBS 2 Chicago's Mai Martinez in a September 2013 interview. “They don’t want to touch the horse, nor do they want the horse to step on them.”

Heading up that unit meant managing 30 horses and officers at some of the city's biggest events, such as the Taste of Chicago. It also meant handling crowd control during the unruly celebration around Wrigleyville after the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2013.

Discussing his work with the mounted division also showcased a quality that Bauer's friends and colleagues talked about: his sense of humor.

“You don’t have to buy them lunch. They don’t complain," he told Martinez concerning the benefits of working with his four-legged partners.

Working with the horses also had a profound effect on Bauer. Each of the animals shares the name of a Chicago police officer killed in the line of duty, something that didn't go unnoticed by Bauer.

"It does affect you emotionally," he said about the horses and their namesakes during a November 2012 WGN News interview. "You may not have known them personally, but they were one of us."

WATCH: Bauer talks to WGN News in 2012 about working with the horses in the Chicago Police Department's mounted division.

Bauer's dedication to fallen officers went beyond the station house, too. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, he helped the families of officers hurt or killed in the line of duty through the nonprofit Chicago Police Memorial Foundation.

Bauer also participated in the public art project Horses of Honor. That intiative had local artists decorate life-size, fiberglass horses dedicated to the memory of Chicago police officers who died or were injured on the job. The horses then were displayed throughout the city beginning Sept. 11, 2014.

Bauer, 53, is survived by his wife, who works at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and his daughter.

Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer (Image via screen shot by WGN News | YouTube)