This need for adoration and the fact that chiefs and sheriffs have entered the political arena supporting candidates they believe are pro cop, is problem number one. Since when did LEO leadership become media darlings and social media influencers? Just like the Christian evangelical community that insists on putting their support to trump appointed officials and their own interests ahead of what is best for all citizens. Separation of church and state? The same should apply to cops. Just do the job you were hired to do. Nobody wants to hear a cops version of his/her version of what our society should be. When a crime is committed, I think it's safe to say, that citizens want cops to show up, arrest the perpetrators and leave. Spare us your tribalism, nationalism and political patriotism please. And the blue wall of silence that infests every department nationwide is the reason good cops are lumped in with bad. Want law enforcement officers to receive the respect and support they deserve? Mandate they open their mouths when they know they're fellow officers are dirty or are violating their oath. Until that wall comes down, ordinary citizens will fear the very people paid to protect them.
You are so right, Curtis. Just do the job you were hired to do. Uphold the Oath you took when had that badge pinned on you. Uphold the Path you took after you were elected. You swore to uphold the laws of this nation, and the Constitution. Place in that Oath does it say you bow down to anyone and turn your back on the nation, or the people in your community.
I, too, am a retired cop. Spent most of my career 28 years as a deputy; 26.5 of that as a patrol deputy in a county the size of Connecticut with an unincorporated urban population of about 40,000. I was a use of force instructor for 13 years, wrote policy, delivered training in everything from force documentation and justification, physical control measures to intermediate weapons use (pepper spray, taser, ASP and Monadnock batons) and scenario-based training involving deadly force decision making. I agree with everything you've written here. I feel that the release of video in these cases is both essential for documentation and not appropriate for public consumption without proper guidance.
The media, now. Damn. They have no freaking clue.
I had the opportunity to do a "media day" for training. It was very eye-opening for the newsies that attended, and I made a couple of good friends following that training day.
Three cheers for what you said "Ally"; this stupid dichotomy (cops are good or bad) misses the real pressures placed on cops (e.g. in the paintball training here in L.A. new 19 year oldish cops who don't shoot red paint the fastest lose) and the real tragic outcomes of how many police academies put newbies on the job w/o training.
Hi, Curtis. You’ve followed me, so we must have some political thinking in common. Turns out, more besides--I, too, am retired/disabled law enforcement, a former deputy district attorney. (I was injured on the job and had to end my career in ‘97--although I didn’t know it then, and tried to get back until 2005.) When I knew I wanted to be in criminal law I didn’t know whether I wanted to be a defense attorney (for the big bucks!!) or a felony prosecutor, so I was a reserve police officer for 8 years. Almost to a man (there was one lone woman, too tiny to be effective), everyone in my department was a hero, to my mind. There were very few officers among those I worked with who failed essential judgment (--although there was that one time when playing keep-away in the locker room resulted in a spiral fracture of one young man’s femur and the loss of his career.)
I became a felony prosecutor because all the power is there. Yes, judges are final arbiters (at least, before appeals), but they are most often led by prosecutors. Whether to file the death penalty is exclusively the province of the DA.
I think corporate-owned media’s deliberate sensationalism has swallowed journalism whole. It’s also true that racism is endemic in the police profession; we have FBI reports from the ‘70s that prove racists have been and still are actively & consistently being recruited. The same is true of our military. The results are clear, devastating, and part of the reason our democracy is in peril.
In this case, higher-up’s did everything right. The eejits were immediately terminated, the DA filed charges--so far, so good. The problem with termination is, there are no effective bars to being rehired as police officers elsewhere. Powerful police unions contribute to this by overprotecting bad cops. Juries rarely convict police officers who’ve violated the law.
Unquestionably the public must be informed. It’s already blatantly clear these problems exist & change can’t occur in a vacuum. Reid’s question as to whether armed police are necessary on traffic stops is of course absurd on its face, but your own question as to why a supposedly elite unit initiated a traffic stop at all is crucial.
Whether we need to be submitted to endless videos of cops perpetrating overwhelming violence I’ll leave to the psychologists studying our obvious national malaise.
Until the persistent recruitment of racists ends, until women, too, are normally in the public’s eye as police officers, until the Fed quits supplying military weapons like tanks to any force with an ample budget to buy at discount (and they are legion), until police unions are curbed to act in greater alignment with the evidence presented, and until juries, too, respond only to the evidence, a national training session as Daniel suggests just--won’t work.
Hello, Knitwash. Glad to meet you. Your story, other than you becoming an attorney after becoming disabled is nearly identical to mine. My career was law enforcement, firefighting, and I ended up with the Florida State Prison System. After I was promoted to Sergeant in the mid 89s spent the next 15 years being transferred from prison to prison opening Close Management Units. Those were one man cells, 4 cell blocks to the unit, 30 inmates in each cell block. That unit housed the inmates that couldn’t live on the compound under any circumstances. They were one step away from total lockdown at Florida State Prison at Starke, Florida. I supervised 4 shifts of officers in the units. Each shift had 5 officers and a supervisor.
We stayed quite busy every day. Usually fighting all day long. But, after a while even the dumbest in the world figure out they had no out.
I also remained busy with my firefighting as a volunteer with the city where I lived. Also did instructing at the law enforcement academy, and the fire academy in Avon Park, Florida. I was a federally and state certified firearms instructor, and I stayed busy with that too. I also held weapon safety and qualification courses for the public at the firing range in Avon Park as well as the city I lived in. I stayed busy working every day of the week doing something. I had to. I had 4 stepchildren and a wife. She stayed home taking care of the home and children. At the time I had 2 in diapers and two in early school grades. And, being in the south, the pay sucked.
At the Sheriff’s Department, as a deputy, I was paid $900 a month, gross. I took home $436 a month, on the 1st of the month. That didn’t cover our rent and electric bill. So you can see how I had to work three other jobs to make ends meet.
As for my political views. I’m Democrat. I vote for the candidate I feel will be the best to serve every citizen of this country. Not just the elite few that have all the money.
As for the upcoming elections. As you have probably read on my comments, my Substack posts, I am strongly opposed to ANY Republican staying in office. I dint care what level they represent. Every damn one of them have to go! This is the only way we are going to kill this virus that has infected this country, and the Republican Party. We MUST VOTE BLUE in every election from right this moment until at least 2030. That includes all local, county, state, and federal elections. All Special Elections. Every last one of them. We have got to get involved talking to people, writing post cards, letters, chatting with friends, family, neighbors, people at stores, restaurants, wherever we see people we have got to get engaged.
If we don’t, our Democracy, our Constitution , will be gone, forever. We will be under a dictatorship!
We are SO on the same page, Daniel! I think I may have given you the wrong impression about my history, tho’--I had already been a DDA for 14 years when I was injured at work--in the courthouse, in fact. Of all the ridiculous possibilities, defective escalators brought me down. Twice. But what an amazing life and career you’ve had; have you ever given thought to writing a book?
Thank you so much for introducing yourself to me. If you’d like to share anything about your disability, I’m open to that, too. (I had 4 spine injuries resulting in my spine half-fused, lotsa titanium. Sadly, the pain that should’ve resolved, didn’t.)
Knitwish. I totally misread your post. After re-reading it, I understand now.
Yiu need to watch those escalators. Those things are dangerous! I fell chasing a criminal we had been looking for in a shopping mall when I spotted him. I was off duty and took off after him. He hit the escalator taking about three steps at a leap, as it was going up. I figured I had to do the same thing. He made it to, I didn’t. I took a bad tumble, but stand break anything, luckily.
My disability inv Lives quite a bit of stuff. I was injured the first time in a car wreck. I was off duty, at the sheriff’s department doing my paperwork when a call came in of armed intruder alarm at a business/home in the southern end of the county. There was only two officers working that midnight shift so I ran out and took off headed to the call with the on duty sergeant. We approached a red light where he went through but the light changed before I hit it. A car stopped at the light in front of me. I pulled the other lane to go through, checked, saw a vehicle coming Bitcoin a distance. I didn’t see the one approaching without their headlights in. When I Tom off to go through the light we collided. It spun me around and into a telephone pole. The guy that hit me stopped a block away, I saw him look back and then took off. I injured my back, head, neck, and my legs. I was in the hospital for 15 days, and after I hit out the sheriff suspended me for 30 days without pay because I had ran the red light and the highway patrol ticketed me for the infraction.
My second go round was chasing a burglar one night running 10-28, wife open. We ran into the adjacent county, which I has their assistance waiting. They fell in behind me when we flew by them at the county line. The perp bailed in a small housing area and started running. He was Mable, and small. He took those chain link fences like a gazelle! Me, 6’7, 360 lbs! I thought ok a couple if those fences but the third or fourth I e got me. I hooked my pant leg in the fence and it put me in the ground in the opposite side, hard, on my shoulder. It screwed ne yo really good. Especially since it wasn’t that long since I’d been out the hospital from my accident. We bought the guy. The adjacent county had two dog teams. They brought them out and tracked the guy. He didn’t like the way he was arrested. Tough shit. He shouldn’t have ran! The sheriff chewed my ass for chasing him into the other county!
The next time I was injured was at the prison. I was escorting some women legislator visitors through the confinement unit at the prison. I was working for the Florida Department of Corrections then. I was between the women and the cells so the convicts couldn’t do anything to them. As we walked by a cell the j late in the deep reaches out and hit me in the shoulder. I immediately, instinctively, grabbed his an and slammed it three or four times back and forth as I pushed it back through the cell bars. Afterward, the woman next to me yelled at me that I was bleeding. He has hit me with a sharpened pencil in my left shoulder, pushing it almost all the way through, but he nicked a bleeder bein, or artery. I really didn’t know, but it was pumping blood out my back. They put pressure on it until medical got there. I ended up going to the hospital with that, general times. It seems the convict had dipped the pencil in his feces before he hit me with it. I ended up with a severe infection, super high fever, sweats, all kinds of issues. Eventually when all that gut he u ended up back in the hospital for a few weeks. The last time I was injured was at a fire. I fell through a roof of a factory, taking the long way down, the hard way. I landed in my back, in the fire. I was wearing all my protective gear, air bottle in my back, and all my equipment. I burned my lower kegs just above my boots, hurt my back, bad, and it knocked ke out for a bit. They had to send two guys in to find me and get me out. When the fictirs released me from the hospital after a couple weeks in traction, intensive care, and everything else, they sen me home, for good. They informed me I was through.
Do you suppose being tall made it worse for us? I’m 6’2” and played tight end lock in a rugby scrum and only broke a couple of fingers. Dang, escalators, right??
But you managed to make it through SO MUCH WORSE, Daniel. And some chit with a chip on his shoulder ticketed you for not seeing a car running without lights, now why does that sound just like highway patrol, it’s like they resent the cops who do actual police work???? But that last, a fecal arterial stab, just--GAAAAH. My last day was Sept. 10, 1997, so strange, huh? My grandfather was a firefighter who fell through the burning choir loft of a church, crushing both legs. My great grandfather was a copper in NJ, who was stabbed while trying to calm a guy with bacterial meningitis in a silent movie theatre. HE was 6’7” --and it took four days for him to die.
Blue collar Dems, all the way. Thank you, Daniel, for sharing that with me. My name is Dee.
Your family history is astounding, Dee. Nice meeting you! I, too, played football in high school. One game. The first game I means middle guard on defense. Went through the line after ball snap, hit the quarterback, got the ball from him and was running down the field . I was 6’6”, a little over 300 lbs., and slower than hell running. But I was chugging fish the field as fast as I could. I got hit by several of the opposing team’s players. I woke up in the hospital in traction. My lower back had been injured, messed me up inside so bad that I never was able to father children. I wanted to go back to playing football, really bad, but the doctors warned me if I got hit again like I did I’d never walk again in my life. It would mess my spine up so bad that it couldn’t be fixed. The doctors, all through the years after that wanted you to do surgery on my spine but I’ve always refused. Now, at 72, I dint even hear about that surgery anymore. They are concentrating on my shoulders. I need both of them fixed, but have no money. So, I do without and suffer in pain. Hell, I hurt from neck to toes. They can’t fix it all.
Oh, Daniel, how awful. I’m 73, and I totally get it. If I could get around, I would allow all injured employees to sue their employers! In my state, Schwarzenegger changed work comp law so if you’re hurt more than once you can’t get total disability. In short, if you’re hurt more than once, the law since 1994 insinuates you must’ve been hurting YOURSELF to get out of working--instead of allowing that the employer may have provided an unsafe workplace. The courthouse had been constructed by the lowest bidder, as all public buildings are--it was so bad they eventually had to demolish it. But by that time, the escalator issue had caused a juror’s death. Even so, that “twice-injured” law remains inescapable.
Yes, I’m very proud of my family’s multigenerational public service. I was grateful to have been a small part.
If we are going to tune in to these broadcast, up their ratings, then what sells will be promoted. It’s just business as usual , winners get the loot?
In far more revealing sectors the real winners are being touted though, truth is being circulated too, so tune in folks where the reality is plain , solutions are suggested, hope is consistent , and that’s where the energy will go.
If you want to be entertained in a world of disaster, bloodshed, ego boosted falsities and rhetoric....well as long as America is still free ....have at it. And when it isn’t, we know you’ll blame us anyway.
Thanks, Joanne. I appreciate your reply. I’m just an ex-cop that’s tired of carrying the blame for the few rotten apples in the ranks.
I feel changes need to be made in the hiring, as well as for the men and women serving their communities. More psychological needs to be performed on both ends. No one knows what an officer goes through each and every day until they put on that uniform and do it themselves. And, most are afraid of losing their jobs if they talk about it. This is what needs to change.
I had to keep everything bottled up that I did on the job for over 26 years. Couldn’t even talk to my family or anyone. So I know what these men & women on the departments are going through.
These departments, local, state & federal, need to have department psychologists on duty 24/7/365 where these officers can go and freely vent frustrations. This is one thing I feel would help in the training of officers also. The initial training can be adjusted with input from the psychologist to help the officer cope with different situations.
It’s a difficult thing to put on your uniform each day, strap on your weapon and gear, kiss your wife and children, tell them you love them and you’ll see them in the morning, or this evening, not knowing if you will get home that evening or tomorrow morning. Or if your wife will be taken to the morgue to identify you. That’s real tough.
Honestly, I believe it all comes down to reporters doing so in a sensational manner deliberately designed to provoke the audience to continue watching. Thus the "news" has become more focused on what makes the most ratings / =money, than presenting a truthful, thoughtful, and respectful viewpoint. Thank you for this provocative article and your many years of service.
I'm really appalled at what happened but appreciate your step by step professional assessment of what went wrong. I'm a private pilot currently flying ultralights. Whenever there is an aviation accident or fatality, there is always an in depth investigation of - what went wrong. Invariably there were MANY mistakes or brakes in protocol. Only when they're added up do we see the disasters
Let's blame untrained media darlings for the fact that corrupt LEOS and the supremacy that comes with the badge are to blame for tarnishing the image of cops in America. News Flash. Steroid use, ptsd, and crappy training for uneducated donkeys exiting the military and into police departments is the culprit. So exhausted by the misplaced hero worship afforded to civil servant cops and military members who only joined the military to avoid jail or couldn't get into college. Every cop in this no class country should be terminated and forced to reapply at revised and more comprehensive admission requirements. And revoking their certification to prevent the movement of dirty cops to other departments should be mandated nationwide.
I agree with you, to a point, Curtis. There are bad apples wearing the badge. And, absolutely, these people need to be weeded out. The sooner the better.
What I would propose is a training course, implemented nationally, that every employee of any law enforcement agency must complete. This would be an extensive training course covering everything that entails in an officers duties, including physical training and psychological evaluation.
I firmly believe that this specialized required training program would weed out the ‘bad apples’.
You would be truly surprised how many supervisors, Chiefs, Sheriffs, there are that need to be out of law enforcement. It amazes me how some of these people are elected! But, New York elected Santos! So what can we say!
Our Legislative branch doesn’t even weed out their ‘bad apples’, so what can we do?
This need for adoration and the fact that chiefs and sheriffs have entered the political arena supporting candidates they believe are pro cop, is problem number one. Since when did LEO leadership become media darlings and social media influencers? Just like the Christian evangelical community that insists on putting their support to trump appointed officials and their own interests ahead of what is best for all citizens. Separation of church and state? The same should apply to cops. Just do the job you were hired to do. Nobody wants to hear a cops version of his/her version of what our society should be. When a crime is committed, I think it's safe to say, that citizens want cops to show up, arrest the perpetrators and leave. Spare us your tribalism, nationalism and political patriotism please. And the blue wall of silence that infests every department nationwide is the reason good cops are lumped in with bad. Want law enforcement officers to receive the respect and support they deserve? Mandate they open their mouths when they know they're fellow officers are dirty or are violating their oath. Until that wall comes down, ordinary citizens will fear the very people paid to protect them.
You are so right, Curtis. Just do the job you were hired to do. Uphold the Oath you took when had that badge pinned on you. Uphold the Path you took after you were elected. You swore to uphold the laws of this nation, and the Constitution. Place in that Oath does it say you bow down to anyone and turn your back on the nation, or the people in your community.
I, too, am a retired cop. Spent most of my career 28 years as a deputy; 26.5 of that as a patrol deputy in a county the size of Connecticut with an unincorporated urban population of about 40,000. I was a use of force instructor for 13 years, wrote policy, delivered training in everything from force documentation and justification, physical control measures to intermediate weapons use (pepper spray, taser, ASP and Monadnock batons) and scenario-based training involving deadly force decision making. I agree with everything you've written here. I feel that the release of video in these cases is both essential for documentation and not appropriate for public consumption without proper guidance.
The media, now. Damn. They have no freaking clue.
I had the opportunity to do a "media day" for training. It was very eye-opening for the newsies that attended, and I made a couple of good friends following that training day.
Three cheers for what you said "Ally"; this stupid dichotomy (cops are good or bad) misses the real pressures placed on cops (e.g. in the paintball training here in L.A. new 19 year oldish cops who don't shoot red paint the fastest lose) and the real tragic outcomes of how many police academies put newbies on the job w/o training.
I appreciate your comment. It’s great hearing that a fellow LEO/Instructor had the same thoughts as I.
Hi, Curtis. You’ve followed me, so we must have some political thinking in common. Turns out, more besides--I, too, am retired/disabled law enforcement, a former deputy district attorney. (I was injured on the job and had to end my career in ‘97--although I didn’t know it then, and tried to get back until 2005.) When I knew I wanted to be in criminal law I didn’t know whether I wanted to be a defense attorney (for the big bucks!!) or a felony prosecutor, so I was a reserve police officer for 8 years. Almost to a man (there was one lone woman, too tiny to be effective), everyone in my department was a hero, to my mind. There were very few officers among those I worked with who failed essential judgment (--although there was that one time when playing keep-away in the locker room resulted in a spiral fracture of one young man’s femur and the loss of his career.)
I became a felony prosecutor because all the power is there. Yes, judges are final arbiters (at least, before appeals), but they are most often led by prosecutors. Whether to file the death penalty is exclusively the province of the DA.
I think corporate-owned media’s deliberate sensationalism has swallowed journalism whole. It’s also true that racism is endemic in the police profession; we have FBI reports from the ‘70s that prove racists have been and still are actively & consistently being recruited. The same is true of our military. The results are clear, devastating, and part of the reason our democracy is in peril.
In this case, higher-up’s did everything right. The eejits were immediately terminated, the DA filed charges--so far, so good. The problem with termination is, there are no effective bars to being rehired as police officers elsewhere. Powerful police unions contribute to this by overprotecting bad cops. Juries rarely convict police officers who’ve violated the law.
Unquestionably the public must be informed. It’s already blatantly clear these problems exist & change can’t occur in a vacuum. Reid’s question as to whether armed police are necessary on traffic stops is of course absurd on its face, but your own question as to why a supposedly elite unit initiated a traffic stop at all is crucial.
Whether we need to be submitted to endless videos of cops perpetrating overwhelming violence I’ll leave to the psychologists studying our obvious national malaise.
Until the persistent recruitment of racists ends, until women, too, are normally in the public’s eye as police officers, until the Fed quits supplying military weapons like tanks to any force with an ample budget to buy at discount (and they are legion), until police unions are curbed to act in greater alignment with the evidence presented, and until juries, too, respond only to the evidence, a national training session as Daniel suggests just--won’t work.
I sincerely wish it could.
Hello, Knitwash. Glad to meet you. Your story, other than you becoming an attorney after becoming disabled is nearly identical to mine. My career was law enforcement, firefighting, and I ended up with the Florida State Prison System. After I was promoted to Sergeant in the mid 89s spent the next 15 years being transferred from prison to prison opening Close Management Units. Those were one man cells, 4 cell blocks to the unit, 30 inmates in each cell block. That unit housed the inmates that couldn’t live on the compound under any circumstances. They were one step away from total lockdown at Florida State Prison at Starke, Florida. I supervised 4 shifts of officers in the units. Each shift had 5 officers and a supervisor.
We stayed quite busy every day. Usually fighting all day long. But, after a while even the dumbest in the world figure out they had no out.
I also remained busy with my firefighting as a volunteer with the city where I lived. Also did instructing at the law enforcement academy, and the fire academy in Avon Park, Florida. I was a federally and state certified firearms instructor, and I stayed busy with that too. I also held weapon safety and qualification courses for the public at the firing range in Avon Park as well as the city I lived in. I stayed busy working every day of the week doing something. I had to. I had 4 stepchildren and a wife. She stayed home taking care of the home and children. At the time I had 2 in diapers and two in early school grades. And, being in the south, the pay sucked.
At the Sheriff’s Department, as a deputy, I was paid $900 a month, gross. I took home $436 a month, on the 1st of the month. That didn’t cover our rent and electric bill. So you can see how I had to work three other jobs to make ends meet.
As for my political views. I’m Democrat. I vote for the candidate I feel will be the best to serve every citizen of this country. Not just the elite few that have all the money.
As for the upcoming elections. As you have probably read on my comments, my Substack posts, I am strongly opposed to ANY Republican staying in office. I dint care what level they represent. Every damn one of them have to go! This is the only way we are going to kill this virus that has infected this country, and the Republican Party. We MUST VOTE BLUE in every election from right this moment until at least 2030. That includes all local, county, state, and federal elections. All Special Elections. Every last one of them. We have got to get involved talking to people, writing post cards, letters, chatting with friends, family, neighbors, people at stores, restaurants, wherever we see people we have got to get engaged.
If we don’t, our Democracy, our Constitution , will be gone, forever. We will be under a dictatorship!
We are SO on the same page, Daniel! I think I may have given you the wrong impression about my history, tho’--I had already been a DDA for 14 years when I was injured at work--in the courthouse, in fact. Of all the ridiculous possibilities, defective escalators brought me down. Twice. But what an amazing life and career you’ve had; have you ever given thought to writing a book?
Thank you so much for introducing yourself to me. If you’d like to share anything about your disability, I’m open to that, too. (I had 4 spine injuries resulting in my spine half-fused, lotsa titanium. Sadly, the pain that should’ve resolved, didn’t.)
Knitwish. I totally misread your post. After re-reading it, I understand now.
Yiu need to watch those escalators. Those things are dangerous! I fell chasing a criminal we had been looking for in a shopping mall when I spotted him. I was off duty and took off after him. He hit the escalator taking about three steps at a leap, as it was going up. I figured I had to do the same thing. He made it to, I didn’t. I took a bad tumble, but stand break anything, luckily.
My disability inv Lives quite a bit of stuff. I was injured the first time in a car wreck. I was off duty, at the sheriff’s department doing my paperwork when a call came in of armed intruder alarm at a business/home in the southern end of the county. There was only two officers working that midnight shift so I ran out and took off headed to the call with the on duty sergeant. We approached a red light where he went through but the light changed before I hit it. A car stopped at the light in front of me. I pulled the other lane to go through, checked, saw a vehicle coming Bitcoin a distance. I didn’t see the one approaching without their headlights in. When I Tom off to go through the light we collided. It spun me around and into a telephone pole. The guy that hit me stopped a block away, I saw him look back and then took off. I injured my back, head, neck, and my legs. I was in the hospital for 15 days, and after I hit out the sheriff suspended me for 30 days without pay because I had ran the red light and the highway patrol ticketed me for the infraction.
My second go round was chasing a burglar one night running 10-28, wife open. We ran into the adjacent county, which I has their assistance waiting. They fell in behind me when we flew by them at the county line. The perp bailed in a small housing area and started running. He was Mable, and small. He took those chain link fences like a gazelle! Me, 6’7, 360 lbs! I thought ok a couple if those fences but the third or fourth I e got me. I hooked my pant leg in the fence and it put me in the ground in the opposite side, hard, on my shoulder. It screwed ne yo really good. Especially since it wasn’t that long since I’d been out the hospital from my accident. We bought the guy. The adjacent county had two dog teams. They brought them out and tracked the guy. He didn’t like the way he was arrested. Tough shit. He shouldn’t have ran! The sheriff chewed my ass for chasing him into the other county!
The next time I was injured was at the prison. I was escorting some women legislator visitors through the confinement unit at the prison. I was working for the Florida Department of Corrections then. I was between the women and the cells so the convicts couldn’t do anything to them. As we walked by a cell the j late in the deep reaches out and hit me in the shoulder. I immediately, instinctively, grabbed his an and slammed it three or four times back and forth as I pushed it back through the cell bars. Afterward, the woman next to me yelled at me that I was bleeding. He has hit me with a sharpened pencil in my left shoulder, pushing it almost all the way through, but he nicked a bleeder bein, or artery. I really didn’t know, but it was pumping blood out my back. They put pressure on it until medical got there. I ended up going to the hospital with that, general times. It seems the convict had dipped the pencil in his feces before he hit me with it. I ended up with a severe infection, super high fever, sweats, all kinds of issues. Eventually when all that gut he u ended up back in the hospital for a few weeks. The last time I was injured was at a fire. I fell through a roof of a factory, taking the long way down, the hard way. I landed in my back, in the fire. I was wearing all my protective gear, air bottle in my back, and all my equipment. I burned my lower kegs just above my boots, hurt my back, bad, and it knocked ke out for a bit. They had to send two guys in to find me and get me out. When the fictirs released me from the hospital after a couple weeks in traction, intensive care, and everything else, they sen me home, for good. They informed me I was through.
That was September 10, 1995.
Do you suppose being tall made it worse for us? I’m 6’2” and played tight end lock in a rugby scrum and only broke a couple of fingers. Dang, escalators, right??
But you managed to make it through SO MUCH WORSE, Daniel. And some chit with a chip on his shoulder ticketed you for not seeing a car running without lights, now why does that sound just like highway patrol, it’s like they resent the cops who do actual police work???? But that last, a fecal arterial stab, just--GAAAAH. My last day was Sept. 10, 1997, so strange, huh? My grandfather was a firefighter who fell through the burning choir loft of a church, crushing both legs. My great grandfather was a copper in NJ, who was stabbed while trying to calm a guy with bacterial meningitis in a silent movie theatre. HE was 6’7” --and it took four days for him to die.
Blue collar Dems, all the way. Thank you, Daniel, for sharing that with me. My name is Dee.
Your family history is astounding, Dee. Nice meeting you! I, too, played football in high school. One game. The first game I means middle guard on defense. Went through the line after ball snap, hit the quarterback, got the ball from him and was running down the field . I was 6’6”, a little over 300 lbs., and slower than hell running. But I was chugging fish the field as fast as I could. I got hit by several of the opposing team’s players. I woke up in the hospital in traction. My lower back had been injured, messed me up inside so bad that I never was able to father children. I wanted to go back to playing football, really bad, but the doctors warned me if I got hit again like I did I’d never walk again in my life. It would mess my spine up so bad that it couldn’t be fixed. The doctors, all through the years after that wanted you to do surgery on my spine but I’ve always refused. Now, at 72, I dint even hear about that surgery anymore. They are concentrating on my shoulders. I need both of them fixed, but have no money. So, I do without and suffer in pain. Hell, I hurt from neck to toes. They can’t fix it all.
Oh, Daniel, how awful. I’m 73, and I totally get it. If I could get around, I would allow all injured employees to sue their employers! In my state, Schwarzenegger changed work comp law so if you’re hurt more than once you can’t get total disability. In short, if you’re hurt more than once, the law since 1994 insinuates you must’ve been hurting YOURSELF to get out of working--instead of allowing that the employer may have provided an unsafe workplace. The courthouse had been constructed by the lowest bidder, as all public buildings are--it was so bad they eventually had to demolish it. But by that time, the escalator issue had caused a juror’s death. Even so, that “twice-injured” law remains inescapable.
Yes, I’m very proud of my family’s multigenerational public service. I was grateful to have been a small part.
If we are going to tune in to these broadcast, up their ratings, then what sells will be promoted. It’s just business as usual , winners get the loot?
In far more revealing sectors the real winners are being touted though, truth is being circulated too, so tune in folks where the reality is plain , solutions are suggested, hope is consistent , and that’s where the energy will go.
If you want to be entertained in a world of disaster, bloodshed, ego boosted falsities and rhetoric....well as long as America is still free ....have at it. And when it isn’t, we know you’ll blame us anyway.
Well said, Patricia!!!
Daniel, thank you for this. I hate that all police are blamed for the horrendous actions of a few. Well written, thoughtful commentary.
Thanks, Joanne. I appreciate your reply. I’m just an ex-cop that’s tired of carrying the blame for the few rotten apples in the ranks.
I feel changes need to be made in the hiring, as well as for the men and women serving their communities. More psychological needs to be performed on both ends. No one knows what an officer goes through each and every day until they put on that uniform and do it themselves. And, most are afraid of losing their jobs if they talk about it. This is what needs to change.
I had to keep everything bottled up that I did on the job for over 26 years. Couldn’t even talk to my family or anyone. So I know what these men & women on the departments are going through.
These departments, local, state & federal, need to have department psychologists on duty 24/7/365 where these officers can go and freely vent frustrations. This is one thing I feel would help in the training of officers also. The initial training can be adjusted with input from the psychologist to help the officer cope with different situations.
It’s a difficult thing to put on your uniform each day, strap on your weapon and gear, kiss your wife and children, tell them you love them and you’ll see them in the morning, or this evening, not knowing if you will get home that evening or tomorrow morning. Or if your wife will be taken to the morgue to identify you. That’s real tough.
Honestly, I believe it all comes down to reporters doing so in a sensational manner deliberately designed to provoke the audience to continue watching. Thus the "news" has become more focused on what makes the most ratings / =money, than presenting a truthful, thoughtful, and respectful viewpoint. Thank you for this provocative article and your many years of service.
Thank you very much. To say I don’t miss it, I’d be lying. I miss that life, a lot!
I'm really appalled at what happened but appreciate your step by step professional assessment of what went wrong. I'm a private pilot currently flying ultralights. Whenever there is an aviation accident or fatality, there is always an in depth investigation of - what went wrong. Invariably there were MANY mistakes or brakes in protocol. Only when they're added up do we see the disasters
Let's blame untrained media darlings for the fact that corrupt LEOS and the supremacy that comes with the badge are to blame for tarnishing the image of cops in America. News Flash. Steroid use, ptsd, and crappy training for uneducated donkeys exiting the military and into police departments is the culprit. So exhausted by the misplaced hero worship afforded to civil servant cops and military members who only joined the military to avoid jail or couldn't get into college. Every cop in this no class country should be terminated and forced to reapply at revised and more comprehensive admission requirements. And revoking their certification to prevent the movement of dirty cops to other departments should be mandated nationwide.
I agree with you, to a point, Curtis. There are bad apples wearing the badge. And, absolutely, these people need to be weeded out. The sooner the better.
What I would propose is a training course, implemented nationally, that every employee of any law enforcement agency must complete. This would be an extensive training course covering everything that entails in an officers duties, including physical training and psychological evaluation.
I firmly believe that this specialized required training program would weed out the ‘bad apples’.
You would be truly surprised how many supervisors, Chiefs, Sheriffs, there are that need to be out of law enforcement. It amazes me how some of these people are elected! But, New York elected Santos! So what can we say!
Our Legislative branch doesn’t even weed out their ‘bad apples’, so what can we do?