APRIL 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 4

The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 1

2 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 3

APRIL 2021 

On the Cover / 

Feature Story 

Meet Troy Finner, HPS’s new 

Chief. Finner came up through 

the ranks and Editor Rex Evans 

recalls his early days and why 

he is the best man for the job. 

38 

42 

70 

FEATURES 

48 ACTIVE SHOOTER - WHY SOLO-OFFICER RESPONSE 

SHOULD BE TRAINED 

52 ACTIVE SHOOTER - WILL YOU TAKE THE PLEDGE? 

MEET TROY FINNER: 

58 HPD’S NEW CHIEF OF POLICE 

DEPARTMENTS 

04 Publisher’s Thoughts 

08 Editor’s Thoughts 

10 Guest Editorials 

16 Your Thoughts 

20 News Around the State 

30 News Around the Country 

56 Daryl’s Deliberations - Daryl Lott 

72 Blue Mental Health with Dr. Tina Jaeckle 

76 Running 4 Heroes 

80 Remembering My Hero - HPD Officer Gary Allen Gryder 

82 Honoring our Fallen Heroes 

88 End of Watch -Taken too Soon 

92 Outdoors with Rusty Barron 

94 Marketplace - Discounts for LEOs 

100 Parting Shots 

102 Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas 

66 

HEALING OUR HEROES, 

by SAMANTHA HORWITZ JOHN SALERNO 

74 

HPOU EDITORIAL, 

by PRESIDENT DOUGLAS GRIFFITH 

OUR TEAM 

MICHAEL BARRON 

founder & publisher 


editor-n-chief 

REX EVANS 

contributing editor 

DIANE TRYKOWSKI 

creative editor 

RUSTY BARRON 

outdoor editor 

TINA JAECKLE 


DARYL LOTT 


SAM HORWITZ & JOHN SALERNO 

contributing editors 

DOUGLAS GRIFFITH 

HPOU contributing editor 

JANICE VANZURA 

sales mgr / austin 

PHIL PIERCE 

sales mgr / dallas 

OUR CONTRIBUTORS 

T. EDISON 

light bulb award 

SHERIFF ED GONZALEZ 

HCSO newsletter 

L.A.P.D. OFFICER 

aftermath editor 

MIKE CALLAHAN 


BARBARA A. SCHWARTZ 


TONY PLOHETSKI 


ST. JOHN BARNARD-SMITH 


HPD OFFICER AUSTIN GRYDER 

contributing editor / COPS 

LT. DAN MARCOU 


JOE CONCHA 


TODD FLETCHER 


The BLUES Police Magazine is published monthly by Kress-Barr, LLC, P.O. Box 2733, League City Texas 77574. The opinions 

expressed in articles, op-eds and editorials are those of each individual author and do not reflect the opinion of 

The BLUES or its parent company. Rebuttals or submission of news articles and editorials may be submitted to: 

The BLUES Police Magazine - bluespdmag@gmail.com. The entire contents of The BLUES is copyrighted© and may not be 

reproduced or reprinted without the express permission of the publisher. The BLUES logo is a Trademark of Kress-Barr, LLC. 


In 1000 Words or Less 

People ask me all the time, 

after 36 years, how do you find 

something to write about each 

month? Surely you must run out 

of things to say, right? 

If you truly know me, you 

know I am rarely at a loss for 

words on any subject. And, in 

today’s political environment 

with all that’s transpiring daily, 

the question isn’t, “Do I have 

enough ideas to put into print?” 

It’s more like……”Keep it to a 

1000 words Barron.” 

I mean, where do I start? The 

President falling UP the stairs on 

AF1? The cluster at the Southern 

Border? Have you seen 

the clothes these people are 

wearing? No way they walked 

thousands of miles. Now Biden 

wants to put them all up in hotels 

to the tune of $80 million. 

Oh yeah, and this entire border 

situation is Trump’s fault. Give 

me a break. 

How about Presidents Harris 

and Biden showing up at the aftermath 

of an Asian spa shooting 

but not in Colorado where a 

Police Officer was killed trying 

to save innocent shoppers? And 

within hours, the DEMOS want 

to jump on the anti-gun bandwagon 

when Colorado has a 

Universal Background Check 

Law; Colorado has a Red Flag 

gun confiscation law; Colorado 

bans “hi-capacity” magazines; 

the City of Boulder bans “assault 

weapons” and the Gifford’s 

gun-control group gave 

Colorado and Boulder an A on 

Gun-Control Measures. Everything 

the DEMOS want to enact, 

Colorado already has and yet a 

crook gets a hold of a gun and 

kills people. No amount of laws 

of controls are going to stop 

a thug from getting his or her 

hands on a gun when they want 

one. Afterall, they aren’t going 

to Walmart to buy one, they just 

steal it. 

On an incredibly positive note, 

The Houston City Council voted 

unanimously to approve the 

appointment of Troy Finner to 

Chief of Police at HPD. Finner is 

taking over as Acevedo moves 

his roadshow to Miami. Finner 

is a native of Houston and grew 

up in the Fifth Ward. He attended 

James Madison High School 

and earned a bachelor’s degree 

from Sam Houston State University 

and a master’s degree from 

the University of Houston. He has 

served with the Houston Police 

Department since 1990 and 

worked his way up the ranks. 

There is no better officer to 

serve as chief than Troy Finner 

and we look forward to working 

with him in the years to come. 

And speaking of Acevedo, I’m 

sure he’s thinking now, “Hello 

Sunshine State and bye-bye to 

those idiots at the BLUES who 

didn’t appreciate my charm and 

good looks. Always giving me 

that damn ‘Light Bulb Award.’ No 


worries, that’s all in the rearview 

now, it’s clear sailing from 

here on out.” Uh, not yet big 

boy. 

BREAKING NEWS…NEWS 

FLASH…WE INTERUPT THIS 

EDITORIAL WITH A BREAKING 

NEWS STORY!!!! 

“Michael Barron, Founder and 

Publisher of The BLUES Police 

Magazine announced today 

that The BLUES will soon begin 

publishing a FLORIDA edition of 

the police magazine, now toted 

as being the largest all-digital 

police magazine in America.” 

Yes, that’s correct, we are in 

fact working on establishing a 

Florida office to begin publishing 

a Sunshine State edition. 

More information will be forth 

coming on this exciting new addition 

to The BLUES. 

Acevedo: “Ah shit, are you 

serious? No frickin way. That 

damn Mike Barron.” 

Get me the Highway Patrol, I’ll 

stop him at the State line. 

FT. WORTH 

6201 NE Loop 820 

HOUSTON 

 

READY TO SERVE YOU! 

 

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For information contact: 

• Director Business Development • 513-342-3028 

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6 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 7 

Sun - Thurs: 10am – 7pm • Fri & Sat: 10am - 8pm | ShootPointBlank.com

There remain more good people 

than bad in this old ..what world. thing it won’t and everyone get is all you. bad. 

about the fact that not every- 

$150,000 In 

I’ve said it many times. I have 

pointed out many good people 

who were in the midst of doing 

some really good things, all for 

others with no consideration for 

anything in return. 

As a Police Officer, sometimes 

we’re are called upon to do 

some mighty hard and difficult 

things. And sometimes we have 

the opportunity to simply say or 

do something nice. You know, 

like help a stranded motorist fix 

a flat tire. Give someone directions 

when they are lost. Maybe, 

put some gas in a motorist’s car 

allowing them to continue on 

their way. Or perhaps when an 

officer buys groceries 

for a family he or she 

doesn’t even know. 

The point being we 

hear and see a lot of 

negativity about law 

enforcement officers 

these days. And not 

just cops, but people in 

general. Hell, people are 

just negative about life 

in general. But what we 

don’t seem to hear a lot 

about is the good things 

people do in our daily 

lives. There are just 

as many good deeds 

done as there are bad. 

You just have to have a positive 

attitude. 

I’m not implying we need to 

be giddy or overly watchful of 

“good things’ in our life. However, 

I am saying maybe we need 

to pause a moment and think 

light of the previous year, it is 

easy to become a bit cynical and 

think of only the negative. Whatever 

affects us in a negative way 

we tend to focus on that aspect. 

I’m simply saying, we’ve become 

so engrossed with what’s wrong, 

we’ve forgotten about what’s 

right. 

COVID, politics, rising violence, 

lawmakers, racial matters, 

inequality, and education. 

The list goes on and on. So yes, 

one could clearly articulate that 

things have been rough and at 

times they’ve been awful. One 

can lose sight of such simple 

things as a sunrise, a sunset. A 

campfire on a cold night. Friends 

and family gathered for an outdoor 

BBQ. Seeing the “HOT NOW” 

sign glowing at the Krispy Kreme 

on your way home. (Ummm, 

Mike Barron added this) Summer 

is coming and the beaches 

REX EVANS 

are open! Children are still being 

born and we must do better for 

them. And that has to start with 

we must do better for ourselves 

with regards to how we look 

at our world, each other and of 

course, our selves. 

I’m going to close 

with this…. 

Stop focusing on 

the negative. Yes, 

there’s a lot of negative 

things going on. I 

get that. But pause a 

moment and reflect 

instead upon something 

good, at least a 

couple of times a day. 

Maybe someone was 

actually nice to you. 

The line at the grocery 

store wasn’t as 

long as usual today. Maybe your 

kids did the dishes or took out 

the trash. I don’t know, something, 

anything. It’s not like it has 

to be Earth shattering. Just look 

around…it’s not ALL bad. It’s just 

not…. 

full page ad 


Qualified Immunity for LEOs is Under Assault: 

Will the Doctrine Survive the Attack? 

If H.R. 1280 becomes law, the defense of qualified immunity 

for law enforcement officers will be abolished. 

By Mike Callahan 

The doctrine of qualified immunity 

was established by the 

United States Supreme Court 

more than 50 years ago in Pierson 

v. Ray. [1] In 1982, the Court 

in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, [2] explained 

that there is a need for 

a qualified immunity defense for 

public officials, including law 

enforcement officers, to protect 

them from the often-frivolous 

lawsuits resulting from their necessary 

official actions. The Court 

observed that the goal of the 

defense is to allow for the “dismissal 

of insubstantial lawsuits 

without trial.” [3] 

Fast forward to 2001 when the 

Court decided Saucier v. Katz. 

[4] Here the Court established a 

rigid two-pronged analysis that 

lower court trial judges were 

mandated to follow regarding 

qualified immunity. First, the 

lower courts were required to 

determine whether the plaintiff’s 

alleged facts amounted to 

a violation of the constitution. If 

so, the lower courts were directed 

to determine whether the 

alleged constitutional violation 

was clearly established. The 

second prong required proof that 

the defendant officer knew or 

should have known his alleged 

misconduct violated the constitution. 

In Pearson v. Callahan in 2009, 

[5] the Court decided that its 

two-pronged formula in Saucier 

was too inflexible and placed 

unnecessary constraints upon 

lower court judges. The Court 

loosened the application of its 

two-pronged test to permit the 

lower courts to review the second 

prong first by determining 

whether the law on the particular 

constitutional issue was 

clearly established. If not, the 

case would be dismissed without 

trial. 

After Pearson, lower federal 

courts began to dispose of civil 

rights cases by refusing to rule 

on whether officer conduct violated 

the constitution and instead 

dismissed them because there 

was no prior case law sufficiently 

close or directly on point condemning 

the conduct at issue. 

[6] The ability of lower federal 

courts to dismiss cases of alleged 

police constitutional misconduct 

because officers did not 

violate clearly established law 

has created a virtual firestorm of 

criticism of the qualified immunity 

defense. [7] 

CONTEMPORARY SUPREME 

COURT ACTIONS ON “QUALIFIED 

IMMUNITY” 

On June 15, 2020, the Supreme 

Court refused to hear eight cases 

pertaining to the qualified immunity 

defense. [8] Seven of those 

cases involved “police accused 

of excessive force or other misconduct.” 

[9] One of these cases, 

Baxter v. Bracey, [10] involved 

allegations against two police 

officers in which Baxter, the subject 

of a burglary arrest, claimed 

that the officers unleashed a K9 

dog upon him after he had raised 

his hands in surrender. The dog 

bit Baxter who filed a 42 U.S.C.§ 

1983 (federal civil rights statute) 

lawsuit against the officers. The 

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals 

ruled in favor of the officers and 

dismissed the suit on qualified 

immunity grounds because Baxter 

was unable to establish that 

the officers violated a clearly 

established constitutional right. 

A petition for review was 

initiated by Baxter to the Supreme 

Court. The Court denied 

the petition along with several 

others involving qualified immunity. 

Justice Clarence Thomas 

filed a dissent to the dismissal 

of the petition. [11] In his dissent, 

Justice Thomas stated, “I have 

previously expressed my doubts 

about our qualified immunity 

jurisprudence.” Justice Thomas 

observed that although qualified 

immunity is applied routinely by 

courts in § 1983 litigation, “The 

text of § 1983 makes no mention 

of defenses or immunities.” [12] 

He further opined, “There is likely 

no basis for the objective inquiry 

into clearly established law that 

our modern cases prescribe.” [13] 

With this language and more, 

Justice Thomas expressed his 

doubt about the continued efficacy 

of the qualified immunity 

defense. Notwithstanding Justice 

Thomas’s point of view, the 

Supreme Court once again on 

March 8, 2021, refused to review 

Howse v. Hodous, [14] another 

case involving a grant of qualified 

immunity to law enforcement 

officers. [15] 

Howse alleged that officers 

confronted him as he was entering 

his home and asked him 

if he lived there. He responded 

in the affirmative. Howse was 

asked if he was sure he lived 

there and he responded with 

something like, “Yes, what the 

f….” An officer commented that 

Howse had a smart mouth and a 

bad attitude. Howse claimed an 

officer told him to put his hands 

behind his back and that he was 

going to jail. Howse refused and 

an officer allegedly grabbed him, 

threw him on the ground and 

tried to handcuff him. [16] Howse 

resisted by stiffening his body 

and his mother came out and 

said she saw an officer hit her 

son, causing him to hit his head 

on the porch of the house. 

Howse was arrested but the 

charges were dismissed. Howse 

sued the officers pursuant to § 

1983, alleging a violation of the 

Fourth Amendment. The federal 

district court judge dismissed 

the suit and Howse appealed. 

The Sixth Circuit ruled in favor 

of the officers on qualified immunity 

grounds because Howse 

could produce no prior case that 

would place the defendants on 

notice that they were violating 

clearly established law. 

WILL THE QUALIFIED IMMUNITY 

DOCTRINE SURVIVE IN ITS CUR- 

RENT FORM? 

Predicting the future with any 

degree of certainty is of course 

an impossible task. Nonetheless, 

there are certain signs that can 

be considered in trying to ascertain 

the direction that the Supreme 

Court may follow. 

First, with respect to the qualified 

immunity doctrine as applied 

to law enforcement officers, 

we have seen in the past 

nine months two dramatic refusals 

by the Court to examine the 

application of the qualified immunity 

defense by lower federal 

courts in cases that some would 

argue clearly merited review. 

During this same time period, 

there have been numerous 

instances of serious and sometimes 

violent citizen protests alleging 

police brutality emanating 

from the death of George Floyd. 

These protests have resulted in 

demands for police reform of 

law enforcement conduct that 

allegedly resulted in the abuse of 

minority groups by police nationwide. 

On March 3, 2021, the United 

States House of Representatives 

voted 220 to 212 to pass H. R. 

1280, the “George Floyd Justice in 

Policing Act of 2021.” [17] Section 

102 of this proposed law deals 

with “Qualified Immunity Reform.” 

My reading of this section 

indicates that instead of using 

the word “Reform,” the authors 

of the Bill should have titled 

Section 102 as follows: “Qualified 

Immunity Abolished.” The 

language of the Bill, if passed, 

clearly signals the death knell of 

qualified immunity. [18] The Bill 

will now go to the Senate for 

consideration and review. 

It appears that in denying review 

of many recent police-related 

qualified immunity cases 

as described above, the Supreme 

Court is waiting to see what 

happens with qualified immunity 

in the U.S. Congress before 

agreeing to review and possibly 

modify or change its current 

qualified immunity doctrine. If 

Congress abolishes qualified 

immunity, the judicially created 

qualified immunity doctrine will 

cease to exist. If Congress fails 

to act, the Court is likely to step 

in and reconsider its current parameters 

of the doctrine. 

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO QUAL- 

IFIED IMMUNITY IF CONGRESS 

FAILS TO ACT ON H.R. 1280? 

The Supreme Court has signaled 

its possible willingness to 

modify the qualified immunity 

doctrine by recently granting 

limited review of two cases in 

which Texas correctional officers 

were held not liable by the Fifth 

Circuit for unconstitutional conduct 

because they did not violate 

clearly established law. The High 

Court ordered an immediate remand 

of both cases for the Fifth 

Circuit to reconsider its grant of 

qualified immunity to the defendant 

correctional personnel. 

The first case is Taylor v. Ri- 


ojas [19] in which the Fifth Circuit 

dismissed a lawsuit against 

Texas correctional officers for 

allegedly subjecting inmate 

Taylor to shockingly unsanitary 

conditions in his cell. The Fifth 

Circuit ruled that the conduct of 

the officers violated the Eighth 

Amendment but determined that 

the law on point was not clearly 

established, thus relieving them 

of liability. The second case is 

McCoy v. Alamu, another Eighth 

Amendment case, that was filed 

by an inmate against a Texas 

correctional officer. [20] In this 

case, a correctional officer allegedly 

used pepper spray upon 

the plaintiff for no reason. The 

Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the 

correctional officer on qualified 

immunity grounds because the 

plaintiff could produce no prior 

case which would place the officer 

on notice that he was violating 

clearly established law. 

In remanding the Taylor case, 

the Court issued a short “Per 

Curiam” Opinion [21] in which 

it observed that the Fifth Circuit 

was mistaken in granting qualified 

immunity to the defendant 

correctional officers. The Court 

explained that qualified immunity 

shields an officer who 

“reasonably misapprehends the 

law.” However, the Court stated, 

in this situation, “no reasonable 

correctional officer could have 

concluded that … it was constitutionally 

permissible to house 

Taylor in such deplorably unsanitary 

conditions.” With these 

words, the Court is signaling 

its willingness to modify the 

qualified immunity doctrine to 

eliminate the need for victims to 

produce actual case law directly 

on point or sufficiently close in 

order to establish a violation of 

clearly established law. In other 

words, some misconduct is 

so egregious and so obviously 

wrong that it violates clearly 

established law even in the 

absence of the existence of prior 

case law directly on point or 

close to the instant issue. 

The “Qualified Immunity Reform” 

portion of U.S. House of 

Representatives Bill, H. R. 1280, 

Section 102, covers state and 

local law enforcement officers 

who are involved in “the prevention, 

detection, or investigation 

of any violation of criminal law.” 

[22] The proposed law does not 

appear to cover state correctional 

officers who guard prisoners 

convicted under state law. This 

may account for the Supreme 

court’s willingness to consider 

modifying qualified immunity 

in the state correctional realm 

while holding back on state and 

local law enforcement officers 

until Congress votes on H.R. 1280. 

CONCLUSION 

After the death of George 

Floyd, the judicially created 

“qualified immunity” doctrine 

has been under assault and 

fierce criticism from many different 

directions, including media 

and various citizen groups. The 

pressure to change or abolish 

the doctrine has resulted in the 

passage of H.R. 1280 by the U.S. 

House of Representatives. If H.R. 

1280 becomes law, the defense 

of qualified immunity for law 

enforcement officers will be 

abolished. If the bill fails to 

pass, the Supreme Court, which 

has recently declined to review 

numerous law enforcement-related 

qualified immunity cases, 

is likely to accept a law enforcement 

qualified immunity case for 

review. 

Such a review will likely focus 

on the fairness of judicial dismissals 

of alleged police misconduct 

cases because plaintiffs 

were unable to overcome the 

clearly established law requirement 

of the qualified immunity 

doctrine. The Supreme Court 

has very recently signaled its 

sensitivity to lower court dismissals 

of troublesome correctional 

officer misconduct cases 

because the plaintiffs could not 

locate a specific case that clearly 

established wrongdoing by 

correctional officials. The Court 

has indicated in a Per Curiam 

Opinion its willingness to consider 

modifying the qualified 

immunity doctrine by abandoning 

the strict requirement that a 

plaintiff produces a specific prior 

case that declared the conduct 

of the current defendant clearly 

unconstitutional. Instead, in 

the absence of such a case, the 

Court may declare that some 

police misconduct is so obviously 

wrong that finding a particular 

prior case close to or directly on 

point is unnecessary. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

John Michael Callahan served in 

law enforcement for 44 years. His 

career began as a special agent 

with NCIS. He became an FBI 

agent and served in the FBI for 

30 years, retiring in the position 

of supervisory special agent/ 

chief division counsel. He taught 

criminal law/procedure at the FBI 

Academy. After the FBI, he served 

as a Massachusetts Deputy Inspector 

General and is currently 

a deputy sheriff for Plymouth 

County, Massachusetts. He is the 

author of two published books 

on deadly force and an upcoming 

book on supervisory and municipal 

liability in law enforcement. 


The THIN BLURRED LINE 

The news used to be straight 

news. Facts and only the facts. No 

speculation. The news consisted 

of true information reported as it 

happened without a political twist 

or an editorial agenda. 

Not anymore. 

The line between news and 

editorial commentary has blurred 

and disappeared entirely. The 

news is laced with opinion, editorializing, 

and commentary. 

The issue exists because you— 

the consumer of the news—is 

no longer warned ahead of time 

when the line is being crossed. 

Back when only three broadcast 

television sources for news existed—the 

networks ABC, CBS, and 

NBC—the news reported was true 

and actual news. Stories detailed 

what happened. The when, why, 

what, where, and how was reported. 

Segments that went beyond 

pure news were labeled as such. 

The words “Editorial Opinion” or 

“Station Manager’s Editorial Comment” 

would appear on the screen 

to inform the viewer that the content 

presented involved commentary, 

not news or facts. 

Networks warned viewers that 

what they were listening to included 

the views of the person 

speaking or the views of the network 

or station. 

That practice dissolved with the 

invention of cable television and 

the birth of the twenty-four-hour 

Cable News Network (CNN.) Other 

similar all news/all the time networks 

followed. 

Newspapers once remanded 

commentary to the Opinion-Editorial 

(OP-ED) page. Printed news 

articles contained only the facts 

as they actually occurred without 

a political angle or twist. 

Not anymore. 

Commentary runs amok and is 

not suitably labeled. The news 

consumer has a tough time identifying 

what is opinion or agenda 

and what is true factual news. 

The line between news and 

commentary gets blurrier and 

blurrier. 

Today news is presented using 

methodology to persuade and 

influence a person’s thinking and 

opinions. 

This applies to all levels of news 

reporting from local to national, 

cable to broadcast stations, print, 

and the biggest offender—the 

world wide web. 

Truth-based, ethical journalism 

has gone by the wayside. 

What is promoted as news is 

really a company advocating their 

political and social opinions. 

The political views of the news 

media’s parent companies and 

advertisers determine the content 

of the news. Advertising dollars 

are invested in news channels and 

newspapers that adhere to the 

same political views as the advertiser. 

In the end, what the viewer 

sees and digests, what is misleading 

labeled as the news, is actually 

viewpoints that are bought and 

paid for by big companies with 

huge advertising and political action 

budgets. 

More and more news outlets, 

including many newspapers, are 

being bought by conglomerates. 

More and more news sources are 

being overseen by the same parent 

company and reflect the owner’s 

or board of directors’ political 

views and agenda. 

The subtly of what gets presented 

to your eye and ear can be as 

simple as one well-placed word 

or headline that states an underlying 

opinion. 

For example, on Inauguration 

Day, January 20, 2021, CBS News 

anchor Norah O’Donnell reported 

that President Trump had “skipped 

town” that morning. 

Yes, she said “skipped town.” 

A connotation used to describe 

when a person has left town under 

questionable circumstances or 

to evade arrest. 

O’Donnell could have used other 

words such as “left” or “departed.” 

Words that would have accurately 

reported the event without editorial 

underpinnings. O’Donnell 

chose “skipped town” to make a 

statement. The words were chosen 

to instill a thought and feeling 

in the viewer’s subconscious that 

Trump left Washington under 

scrutiny. The word choice had 

definite connotation. 

O’Donnell’s word choice equated 

to unethical journalism that 

should never have been used by a 

network TV anchor when reporting 

on the facts of the day. 

Legendary CBS news anchor, 

Walter Cronkite, probably spun in 

his grave. 

Newspapers aren’t immune from 

blurring the line and attempting 

to influence and persuade while 

reporting what is supposed to be 

factual news. 

Let’s consider an example from 

“The Houston Chronicle” related to 

Houston PD. 

On January 25, 2021, Houston 

officers were involved in a shooting 

that began in the 8500 block 

of North Main where a person in 

a car was shot and killed. The 

shooter then shot at innocent 

people as he made his way to a 

convenience store where he went 

in and threatened customers and 

employees with a firearm. 

Houston PD’s bravest confronted 

this shooter at the convenience 

store. The courageous officers 

were forced to end this deadly 

threat to themselves and innocent 

Houstonians. 

(Note that this author inserted 

bravest and courageous into these 

sentences to plant the idea into 

your subconscious mind.) 

This situation was essentially 

an active shooter incident. Was it 

reported that way? Hell no. 

The Chronicle ran a few lines 

under a photo. The headline 

read “Officer-involved shooting 

probed.” The lines under the photo 

read “Police investigate an officer-involved 

shooting in the 100 

block of East 44th Street on Monday. 

An officer shot a suspected 

gunman who fatally shot a man 

in the 8500 block of North Main 

Street.” 

They failed to report the fact 

that the gunman was actively 

threatening innocent citizens 

or that Houston officers bravely 

ended the deadly threat to citizen’s 

safety. 

Notice the word choice. The 

Chronicle led with the words “Officer-involved 

shooting probed.” 

Words ripe with connotation that 

the officer’s actions were questionable. 

No mention that officers risked 

their lives to confront and stop an 

active shooter threatening innocent 

people. 

This incident could have been 

reported with the real facts. But 

the Chronicle chose to report it 

with the spin that the officers had 

done something wrong. 

In subsequent days, there was 

no mention of this shooting incident 

in the paper or that the 

shooting was determined to be 

justified. 

When an officer involved shooting 

occurs, the officer is never referred 

to as “suspected” of shooting. 

Terminology is used in the 

article that suggests the officer 

did something wrong and is under 

investigation by multiple agencies. 

The known shooter is always 

given the benefit of the doubt with 

the words “suspected” or “alleged.” 

This serves as another example 

of reporting that instills an 

opinion or idea in the mind of the 

consumer of the news. 

Beware of the thin blurred line. 

The line between fact and commentary 

has been blurred. Every 

news report is written to persuade 

you to think in a certain way. 

Every report attempts to elicit an 

emotion in the reader or listener. 

Every news report that you are 

exposed to comes with commentary 

and agenda. Every ounce of 

news that you ingest has been 

tainted with a viewpoint. 

Consume accordingly. 


Barbara A. Schwartz is certified 

as a first responder peer supporter 

by the International Critical Incident 

Stress Foundation (ICISF) 

and the Law Enforcement Alliance 

for Peer Support (LEAPS). She 

maintains specializations in grief, 

injured officer support, suicide 

prevention, and traumatic stress 

injuries. 

As a Police Explorer Scout and 

Reserve Officer, Schwartz served 

in patrol and investigations. Her 

articles and book reviews have 

appeared in American Police Beat, 

The Thin Blue Line, Command, The 

Tactical Edge, Crisis Negotiator 

Journal, Badge & Gun, The Harris 

County Star, The Blues, The Shield, 

The Police News, Police1.com and 

Calibre Press Newsline. 

She maintains memberships in 

the National Tactical Officers Association 

(NTOA) and the International 

Law Enforcement Educators 

and Trainers Association (ILEETA). 

Schwartz has dedicated her life 

to supporting the brave officers of 

law enforcement. 

Copyright©2021 Barbara A. 

Schwartz All Rights Reserved. 


CAR CLUB MEETS ARE NOT TOXIC 

Chances are you’ve seen them 

– car clubs gathering in suburban 

parking lots full of beautifully 

shiny classic vehicles, 

hoods open, windows down, 

men and women milling around 

comparing notes and sharing a 

mutual love of a hobby. 

But according to media reports, 

car clubs are under fire in Austin, 

Texas, for exuding a “toxic display 

of masculinity.” 

The term “toxic masculinity” is 

a recently invented term, coined 

by academics and media personalities 

who believe certain 

masculine traits are harmful to 

not only society but also to the 

men themselves. 

Repeating a lie long enough 

doesn’t make it true, of course. 

Masculinity isn’t toxic at all – 

it’s God-given and has literally 

shaped and saved civilization. 

Without the American men of 

the “Greatest Generation” we’d 

be speaking German. Or maybe 

we wouldn’t be here at all, especially 

since it took strong men 

to sail for America in search of a 

better life. 

The nature of men is under 

assault these days, both lampooned 

and delegitimized by 

those determined to neuter the 

very characteristics and qualities 

that have distinguished males 

from females since Adam first 

walked in the Garden of Eden 

with Eve. 

It was the Boy Scouts of America 

yesterday and car clubs today. 

For the perpetually aggrieved, it 

never really ends. A new day – a 

new offense. 

Although this conversation is 

much more than about car clubs, 

let’s entertain the folly. 

Texas Monthly paints the setting 

and scene of the offense: 

After a few loops around 

the park, some drivers—most 

of them Black and Latino men 

in their twenties and thirties 

driving customized lowriders, 

bright, candy-colored slabs, and 

jacked-up trucks with flashy 

chrome rims—packed into a 

nearby middle school parking 

lot. Some unloaded barbecue 

grills, toddlers, and pit bulls, 

then cracked open beers, and 

blasted Texas hip-hop and Tejano 

music. 

Some variation of this assembly 

has taken place nearly every 

Sunday afternoon since the early 

nineties. But now many residents 

of The Weaver, a newly 

built luxury apartment building 

across the street—whose website 

promises renters access to a 

“community that is rich in history 

and tradition”—have decided 

it’s time for the weekly event to 

come to an unceremonious end. 

Might some of the club’s participants 

be a bit obnoxious or 

inconsiderate from time to time? 

No question. But does it warrant 

the banning of the club and the 

labeling of the behavior as toxic? 

The article concludes, quoting 

a “twentysomething” man 

named Kilo who said he’s been 

participating in the car club activities 

since childhood. 

He wondered why instead of 

calling the police and creating 

unnecessary tension the blonde 

woman and other angry residents 

hadn’t walked across the 

street and introduced themselves 

first, opening dialogue. 

“If you come with good energy, 

you’ll find out that we’re just 

here to chill and enjoy the cars 

and the scenery,” he said. “Don’t 

be scared.” 

Fear is often at the root of any 

visceral reaction to masculinity. 

Maybe from a bad experience or 

just plain ignorance, many people 

seem to think strong men are 

dangerous. 

In reality, strong men are precisely 

what this world needs. 

Strong men love, well – honestly, 

sincerely, sacrificially. They 

make great sons, husbands and 

fathers. They’re good neighbors 

and terrific friends. Strong men 

stand up to bullies and stare 

down enemies who want to do 

others harm. They’re good humored, 

empathetic and eager 

to do whatever it takes to serve 

their families well. 

Instead of talking about “toxic 

masculinity” we should be discussing 

“Biblical masculinity” – 

acknowledging the fact that God 

deliberately made two sexes of 

equal value designed to complement 

one another. 

Then God said, “Let us make 

man in our image, according to 

our likeness; and let them rule 

over the fish of the sea and over 

the birds of the sky and over the 

cattle and over all the earth, 

and over every creeping thing 

that creeps on the earth.” God 

created man in His own image, 

in the image of God He created 

him; male and female He created 

them (Genesis 1:26-27). 

Culture would benefit from 

encouraging, not demonizing, 

honorable displays of masculinity. 

Let’s celebrate and champion 

car clubs, hunting excursions or 

any other healthy activities that 

attract men to gather together. 

RED MARK USA 

Rescuing the Innocent 

Houston Police officers, Harris County Sheriff’s deputies and deputy 

constables are imprisoned by a corrupt district attorney on trumped up 

charges. A progressive police chief investigates and fires officers by the 

dozens on spurious complaints. 

The USA is under the control of a leftist government. Anyone found 

in contempt of the new ideology has their bank accounts closed and 

locked. That’s the Red Mark. 

Left wing rioters burn and destroy churches, synagogues, mosques 

and temples. The First and Second amendments to the Constitution are 

declared null and void. Right wing insurrectionists plot to kidnap the 

mayor and city council. 

Corrupt and inept Department of Human Relations police abuse citizens 

and act like a new Gestapo. 

Dozens of police officers, sheriff’s deputies and constables are scheduled 

for execution by public hanging in front of an angry mob. It’s up to 

a group of officers and deputies to rescue them before they’re killed. 

Working in strictest secrecy, knowing that the discovery of their plot will 

mean prison and death, they work against time to rescue the innocent. 

Deacon Blue is a retired Houston Police Officer. 

Available on Amazon Kindle or paperback. $9.95 

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE 



DPS Trooper Ambushed on Highway Outside Waco 

Texas DPS Trooper Chad Walker 

was ambushed on Friday 

March 26 while responding to 

what he apparently thought was 

a disabled vehicle parked on the 

side of a rural road just outside 

of Mexia, a small town about 40 

miles northeast of Waco. 

Walker, who was alone, pulled 

up behind the vehicle and was 

shot in the head and abdomen 

before he could get out of his 

patrol car, according to a statement 

from Todd Snyder, regional 

director of the Texas Department 

of Public Safety. 

The suspect who shot Walker 

was identified as 36-year-old 

Dearthur Pinson of Palestine, Texas, 

who saw the patrol car pull 

in behind his and “immediately 

emerged from the driver’s seat of 

the disabled vehicle armed with 

a handgun and fired multiple 

rounds at Trooper Walker. The 

shots penetrated the patrol unit’s 

windshield striking Walker in 

both the head and abdomen. Pinson 

then allegedly walked back 

to his vehicle, retrieved a backpack 

and fled the scene on foot. 

Walker was transported to The 

Baylor Scott & White Hospital in 

Waco in critical condition. 

Meanwhile a state-wide manhunt 

began to locate the Pinson 

subject. Law enforcement 

agencies from across the state 

assisted in the manhunt which 

eventually led to the small town 

of Mexia. DPS, Texas Rangers 

and other local agencies located 

the suspect who had barricad- 

ed himself in 

a house just 

outside Mexia. 

After an hour 

long standoff, 

SWAT officers 

made entry 

into the home 

and found the 

suspect dead 

from an apparent 

self-inflicted 

gunshot 

wound. 

Walker, remained 

in critical 

condition 

the remainder of the weekend, 

but on the evening of Monday 

March 29, the Texas Department 

of Public Safety tweeted: “After 

extensive life-saving efforts 

conducted by the Baylor Scott 

and White medical professionals, 

it has been determined 

that Trooper Chad Walker no 

longer displays signs of viable 

brain activity and he remains on 

life-support until he can share 

the gift of life as an organ donor.” 

“This final sacrifice embodies 

Trooper Walker’s actions 

throughout his life and service 

as a Texas Highway Patrol 

Trooper. The Walker family is 

grateful for the continued support 

and prayers as they remain 

at Chad’s side,” they added in a 

second tweet. 

Walker, who has been a member 

of the Texas Department of 

Public Safety since 2015, was 

transported to a Waco hospital 

in critical condition. Counselors 

and a Texas Rangers chaplain 

have been with Walker’s 

wife and their 15-year-old son, 

7-year-old twin daughters and 

2-month-old baby girl, according 

to Snyder. 

Since the shooting, more than 

$150,000 has been donated to 

Walker’s family via an online 

crowdfunding campaign to 

assist with the family’s medical 

expenses. 

The Texas Rangers are leading 

the investigation into the 

incident. According to criminal 

records, Pinson had a history of 

run-ins with the law. In November 

2007, he was sentenced to 

a maximum of 10 years in prison 

for armed robbery in Texas’ 

Houston County. 

As of April 5th, The Rangers 

have released no known motive 

for shooting Trooper Walker. 

Trooper Chad Walker Laid to Rest in His Hometown of Groesbeck 

GROESBECK, Texas – For five days 

family, friends, neighbors and colleagues 

prayed for a miracle. 

On Wednesday April 7th, those 

prayers were for the slain trooper’s 

wife and four children as Walker 

was laid to rest in a small country 

cemetery seven miles west of 

Groesbeck, where he grew up. 

A light rain was falling as mourners 

gathered to bid farewell, but the 

sky began to clear as the service 

got underway. 

Schools, the county courthouse, 

and many businesses were closed in 

Groesbeck as residents of the town 

of about 4,200 pause to mourn 

the death of the veteran law enforcement 

officer whom just about 

everybody knew. 

“Our hearts are with the family 

and friends of Trooper Walker as 

they grieve his tragic death in the 

line of duty,” Gov. Greg Abbott said. 

“Trooper Walker’s horrific murder 

is a solemn reminder of the dangers 

law enforcement officers face every 

day to keep our communities safe. 

Officers traveled from as far as 

Nebraska and Florida to attend the 

service at Groesbeck High School 

Football Stadium which was open 

to the public. 

Walker was escorted at 8 a.m. 

Wednesday from Groesbeck Funeral 

Home, where fellow officers have 

stood vigil since last week, to the 

stadium. 

The town was bedecked in blue 

ribbons in Walker’s honor, and residents 

across Central Texas are being 

asked to wear blue Wednesday. 

“At a time like this there’s just 

no words to say. You wish you had 

them you wish you knew the words 

to ease the pain and grief that not 

only the family has but the whole 

community has,” Limestone County 

Judge Richard Duncan said. 

“There’s folks that have gone out 

and worked hard [putting up blue 

ribbons] for their own grief really, a 

way to share their grief over what’s 

happened to the Walker family.” 

“He was a true servant He was 

just one of the best Texas peace 

officers I’ve ever met,” Henderson 

County Sheriff Botie Hillhouse said. 

“Chad was doing exactly what he 

loved to do,” he said. 

“He was a true servant. 


Get ready Miami, your new chief says it’s Love Boat time. 

Acevedo Quits Houston for Giant Pay Increase 

After Acevedo was hired, Miami 

Commissioners Debate 

Taking Larger Role in Hiring 

Process, a Proposal by Miami 

Commissioner Manolo Reyes 

Would Set the Hiring Process 

in the City Charter and Require 

a Majority Vote on the Commission. 

After Miami TV station NBC 6 

Investigators reported details of 

the salary and the hiring process 

for incoming police chief Art 

Acevedo, the city of Miami Commission 

will debate whether to 

play a larger role in the hiring 

or firing of the next police or fire 

chief. 

City Commissioner Manolo 

Reyes wants more input making 

crucial public safety hires after 

the speedy surprise pick of the 

incoming chief. 

NBC 6 learned Acevedo did not 

officially apply for the position 

and was chosen over more than 

50 applicants and eight finalists, 

five of whom were internal 

candidates, who went through a 

public selection process. 

City Manager Art Noriega said 

he made the hire after an introduction 

from Mayor Francis 

Suarez. 

“They came out of nowhere 

and picked a police chief that 

wasn’t vetted,” Reyes said. 

Noriega defended the hire, say- 

ing Acevedo is one of America’s 

most well-known police chiefs. 

For the past 13 years, he’s been a 

major chief in Texas: first in Austin, 

then in Houston. He’s also the 

president of the Major City Chiefs 

Association. 

“I simply couldn’t pass on the 

opportunity to hire a professional 

of Chief Acevedo’s capability,” 

Noriega told NBC 6 earlier. 

Reyes’ proposal would write in 

the city charter a “procedure for 

the selection, appointment, and 

the approval by a majority of the 

city commission of any future 

appointments” for police or fire 

chiefs. In effect, making a confirmation 

process where three out 

of five votes on the commission 

would be needed. 

Currently, the charter makes it 

up to the city manager. 

Noriega told NBC 6 he doesn’t 

have any response to the proposal 

and that it will be addressed 

at a public meeting set on April 

22. 

“At that time, if asked, I will 

give my perspective,” Noriega 

wrote in an email. 

Mayor Suarez has not yet responded 

to a request for comment 

about the proposal, but 

he has previously defended the 

hire, saying, “It was a wonderful 

recruiting job by our manager to 

get essentially what is America’s 

‘best’ police chief here to Miami.” 

Art Acevedo starts in his new 

role in a few weeks. Chief Acevedo, 

by phone, told NBC 6 he 

didn’t want to weigh in on the 

proposal or the hiring process. 

“I just want to focus on my 

new job,” Chief Acevedo said. 

The position was posted online 

by city staff for between 

$195,000 to $230,000 per year in 

salary. That was around the pay 

for former chief Jorge Colina. 

Chief Acevedo, according to an 

offer letter obtained by NBC 6, 

will be starting at $315,000. Each 

year he has a positive review, 

he’ll receive a 5% increase. 

Reyes said this will put him 

close to $400,000 if Acevedo 

stays for five years. 

“We must have some say in the 

contract because this contract is 

out of this world,” Reyes said. 

Chair Ken Russell opposes 

Reyes’s proposal, saying he likes 

the “chain of accountability” as 

it currently is. The city manager 

is in charge of hiring the police 

chief and the Mayor and Commission 

have oversight on the 

city manager. 

Commissioner Jeffrey Waston 

told NBC 6 he hasn’t yet made 

up his mind on the issue but will 

“listen to the arguments” on April 

22. 

“Mr. Reyes is dead wrong. His 

proposal injects politics into the 

selection of a police chief and 

is counterproductive,” Commissioner 

Alex Diaz de la Portilla 

New Miami Police Chief to make higher salary than predecessor. 

Starts at $315,000, with salary increases to $400,000. 

said. “This can lead to an unprofessional 

environment where 

our residents could lose faith in 

the elected officials and chief of 

police.” 

Commissioner Joe Carollo 

didn’t respond to a request 

to Reyes’ specific proposal but 

brought up a similar issue at a 

December 2020 city commission, 

supporting a resolution for 

the city attorney to work on a 

charter amendment to establish 

a “transparent process on the 

choosing of a Police Chief, Fire 

Chief, and budget director for 

the commission to choose and 

vote upon.” 

If approved on April 22, the city 

attorney will return at a later 

date with ballot language. If 

that language is approved by the 

commission, the proposal will 

go on the citywide ballot in November 

for voters to weigh in. 

EDITOR: Well, the ink is barely 

dry on his new Miami contract 

and already Acevedo is making 

news in his new hometown. 

I hate to be the naysayer here, 

but Art Acevedo is NOT the BEST 

POLICE CHIEF in the US. 

I will say he isn’t the worst police 

chief Houston has had, but he 

certainly wasn’t the best either. 

The BLUES does however wish 

Acevedo the best in his new job 

and even better news for him is 

The BLUES will be there to cover 

his every move with our forthcoming 

BLUES Police Magazine - 

FLORIDA EDITION! 


The Case that ended “LIVE PD” 

Two Former Williamson County Sheriff’s Deputies 

Charged with Manslaughter. 

Two Texas LEOs charged with manslaughter in ‘Live PD’ death. An internal investigation 

initially determined that the deputies hadn’t violated any policies. 

By Tony Plohetski 

Austin American-Statesman 

AUSTIN, Texas — Two years 

and one day after Javier Ambler 

II died in custody, a grand jury 

in Austin has indicted deputies 

who chased the black father for 

a minor traffic violation. 

Former deputies J.J. Johnson 

and Zach Camden are charged 

with manslaughter after they 

chased Ambler, 40, in a 2019 

pursuit that started because he 

failed to dim his headlights, then 

used Tasers on him repeatedly 

while he gasped that he could 

not breathe and had congestive 

heart failure. Ambler died minutes 

later. 

The indictments mark the 

latest and most significant turn 

in the investigation into Ambler’s 

death, which gained national 

attention and raised questions 

about the influence of reality TV 

on American policing. Ambler’s 

family and attorneys believe 

that a partnership between “Live 

PD” and the Williamson County 

Sheriff’s Office encouraged deputies 

to forsake sound policing 

practices to play to the cameras. 

Grand jurors issued the indict- 

ments Monday. They were not 

made public until Tuesday, when 

the two turned themselves in to 

the Travis County Jail and were 

released on bond. 

“With these indictments, we 

have taken another critical step 

towards justice for the Ambler 

family and for our community,” 

District Attorney Jose Garza said 

in a statement. “While we can 

never take away the pain of the 

Ambler family, the grand jury 

has sent a clear message that no 

one is above the law.” 

Johnson and Camden face up 

to 20 years if convicted of the 

second-degree felony charge. 

Under Texas law, a person is 

guilty of manslaughter if he is 

aware of “but consciously disregards 

a substantial and justifiable 

risk” that a death will occur. 

Ambler’s death received 

no public attention until 15 

months later, when the American-Statesman 

and KVUE in June 

revealed details after fighting for 

months for public information 

under the Texas Public Information 

Act. Chody’s department 

refused to release records in the 

case. But in late May, just as the 

nation’s attention turned to the 

death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, 

the Texas Attorney General’s 

Office ruled Chody’s office 

had no legal standing to withhold 

them. 

Both Johnson and Camden had 

“Live PD” crews with them the 

night of Ambler’s death. Johnson 

initiated the traffic stop, and 

Ambler led him on a 22-minute 

chase into Travis County, hitting 

several stationary objects along 

the way until his SUV became 

disabled in North Austin. 

Johnson and Camden used 

Tasers on him four times, while 

an Austin police officer, who had 

not participated in the chase 

but responded to a call for help, 

arrived on the scene. The Austin 

officer’s body camera footage, 

which the Statesman and KVUE 

obtained in early June, showed 

Ambler collapsing and dying on 

a North Austin street after he 

cried, “Save me,” as deputies 

delivered a final taser shock. 

An internal investigation found 

the deputies violated no policies, 

and the chief deputy at the time 

praised Johnson and Camden for 

their “professionalism.” 

Former Williamson County Deputies James Johnson (left) and Zachary Camden. 

Two days after the report, A&E 

and the company that makes 

“Live PD,” Big Fish Entertainment, 

canceled the program. Texas 

lawmakers are now considering 

the Javier Ambler Law that 

would ban such shows from 

working with police agencies in 

the state. 

Immediately after the news 

broke of Ambler’s death, “Live 

PD” producers said they deleted 

footage of the incident after 

Chody told them the investigation 

had concluded, prompting 

Williamson County District 

Attorney Shawn Dick to open an 

evidence tampering investigation. 

Investigators from both Williamson 

and Travis counties 

said they tried unsuccessfully 

for months to obtain the “Live 

PD” footage. Both agencies are 

investigating the case because 

the incident began in Williamson 

County and ended in neighboring 

Travis County. They claim Chody 

stonewalled them, a point the 

sheriff has disputed. 

In September, the Williamson 

County investigation culminated 

in the indictments of Chody 

and Williamson County’s general 

counsel, Jason Nassour. Prosecutors 

have not detailed what steps 

they allege Chody and Nassour, 

who were both on the scene in 

the hours after Ambler’s death, 

took related to the video. 

Big Fish Entertainment has 

said it never received a “valid 

subpoena” or court order for the 

video and had a contract provision 

with Williamson County 

that called for them to delete 

unaired raw video within 30 

days. 

But the investigation into the 

actions of Johnson and Camden, 

who are no longer on the force, 

languished for months as Ambler’s 

family and others pushed 

for justice. The case is being 

prosecuted in Travis County because 

Ambler died in the county. 

Former Travis County district 

attorney Margaret Moore initially 

said she would present the 

case to a grand jury in August, 

then reversed course after Garza 

defeated her in a primary runoff 

election. 

Garza, who took office in January 

after running on a platform 

of police accountability, has said 

the case is among his highest 

priorities. 

REPRINTED FROM THE AMERICAN 

STATESMAN (c)2021 Austin American-Statesman, 

Texas 


Drunk Driver Totals Shop, Sends Deputy to Hospital. 

CC 12 Releases DWI Suspect on $100 Bond 

HARRIS COUNTY PCT 4 – On 

March 27, 2021, a deputy with 

Constable Mark Herman’s Office 

was monitoring traffic in 

the 18900 block of State Highway 

249 along the shoulder of 

the roadway when the deputy’s 

marked patrol vehicle was 

struck by another vehicle. 

The driver was identified as 

Tomas Tovar, who displayed 

several signs of intoxication. 

Standardized Field Sobriety 

Tests were administered, and 

it was discovered that he was 

driving while intoxicated. 

Further investigation revealed 

that he had five open warrants 

out for his arrest. 

The injured deputy was transported 

to a local hospital and is 

expected to make a full recovery. 

“Tomas Tovar was arrested 

and booked into the Harris 

County jail, charged with Driving 

While Intoxicated. His bond 

was set at $100.00 out of County 

Court 12.” -Constable Mark Herman. 


HPD Officer Accused of Running from Fatal Shooting 

of Sgt. Harold Preston is Fired. 

During the month of April, hundreds 

of our sworn personnel will 

proudly wear a commemorative blue 

badge on their uniform that prominently 

features the autism awareness 

puzzle piece to bring attention 

to Autism Spectrum Disorder and to 

support those living with it. 

We are in our communities across 

Harris County every day, and this is 

a small way to send a big message: 

We’re here to serve all residents 

with compassion and understanding. 

The distinctive light blue badge 

with the puzzle piece emblem and 

engraved words “Help Create a 

Kinder World” reinforces our promise 

to do all we can to improve our 

interactions with residents, including 

those with a developmental disability 

or those experiencing a mental 

health or emotional crisis. It serves 

as a reminder to residents of what 

we can accomplish together. 

This is the first year of the Blue 

Badges for Autism Awareness program 

and the Sheriff’s Office ordered 

734 commemorative badges, 

more than any other law enforcement 

agency in the nation! 

According to the Center for Disease 

Control and Prevention, one 

in 54 children has autism. Just this 

year, deputies responded to more 

than 1,370 calls for service with a 

mental health component. Many of 

those calls involved a person with 

autism. 

Last fall, we launched a new 

initiative called Project Guardian to 

help our deputies minimize stress 

by alerting them in advance that 

they’re about to interact with a person 

on the autism spectrum. 

The initiative is one of many innovative 

mental health and outreach 

programs supporting our patrol 

deputies and making our neighborhoods 

better places to live. 

A simple interaction with law 

enforcement could be a traumatic 

situation for a person with autism. 

Project Guardian encourages families 

or caregivers to provide a photo 

of their loved one and their interests 

or characteristics, such as whether 

the person is sensitive to loud noises 

or finds bright lights upsetting. 

The online registry is free and 

equips deputies with critical information 

on a person’s special 

needs and proven calming methods. 

Families are also given a Project 

Guardian decal to display on a front 

window to quickly alert deputies 

someone is enrolled in the program. 

By St. John Barned-Smith 

Houston Chronicle 

HOUSTON – HPD fired an officer 

accused of running away from 

gunfire during a domestic dispute 

call that ended with the 

death of veteran Sgt. Harold 

Preston. 

Vanessa Taylor and another officer, 

Courtney Waller, responded 

to a call-in south Houston in 

October 2020, along with Preston. 

The call was to accompany 

a woman to her estranged husband’s 

apartment to collect her 

belongings. It quickly went south 

when the husband began shooting 

at officers, striking Waller 

and Preston. 

The sergeant returned fire, 

striking Elmer Manzano, the man 

police say was the shooter. Taylor 

ran from the scene, multiple 

sources said. At some point in 

the altercation, Manzano shot 

Preston for a second time, striking 

him in the back of the head. 

Manzano has since been charged 

with capital murder. 

An HPD spokesman confirmed 

last month, that Taylor had been 

indefinitely suspended (the term 

used by the department for 

firing). Houston Police Officers’ 

Union President Douglas Griffith 

said that because Taylor was 

punished for something that 

occurred during the line of duty, 

she would be receiving union 

representation. Griffith declined 

to comment on the specific accusations 

against Taylor, saying 

he had not yet seen her disciplinary 

paperwork. 

“It’s my understanding she will 

be fighting the indefinite suspension,” 

he said. “We’re waiting to 

find out what happens in arbitration.” 

As one of his last acts as HPD 

Chief, Art Acevedo said he handed 

down the discipline after the 

case worked its way through the 

department’s disciplinary system. 

“One of the reasons I wanted to 

stay as long as I did was to make 

sure that case was taken care 

of,” he said. “It happened under 

my watch.” 

Taylor joined the department in 

2015, according to department 

records. The discipline against 

her is the latest fallout from the 

events leading up to the fatal encounter 

Preston’s death. Waller 

— who was shot in the arm — 

was disciplined for 20 days. And 

a sergeant who responded to 

another domestic dispute call at 

Manzano’s home the day before 

the fatal incident received 

a five-day suspension, Griffith 

confirmed. 


Boulder CO. 

Boulder Officer Killed in Mass Shooting 

By Saja Hindi 

BOULDER — Boulder Police Officer 

Eric Talley, who was killed while 

responding to the King Soopers 

shooting, was the father of seven, 

according to a statement released 

by his family. 

Talley was the first police officer 

to arrive at the scene of the active 

shooting Monday afternoon, Police 

Chief Maris Herold said. 

He was among 10 who were killed 

in the mass shooting. Talley had 

been with the Boulder Police Department 

since 2010. Talley was remembered 

as someone who cared 

for others — human and animal. 

In 2013, Talley was recognized by 

fellow officers for wading calf-deep 

into water to try and rescue a family 

of ducks that found themselves 

trapped in a drainage ditch, according 

to the Boulder Daily Camera. 

“He took his job as a police officer 

very seriously,” Homer Talley, Eric 

Talley’s father, said in the statement 

released to broadcast media. 

But more than anything, he said 

his son loved his family — the 

youngest child is 7 years old. 

On Twitter, a woman who identified 

herself as Talley’s younger 

sister posted about how heartbroken 

she was. 

“I cannot explain how beautiful 

he was and what a devastating loss 

this is to so many. Fly high my sweet 

brother. You always wanted to be a 

pilot (damn color blindness). Soar,” 

she wrote. 

“Talley treated all people as real 

human beings,” an attorney wrote 

on Facebook about his experience 

on a ride along with Talley. He said 

the experience while he was in law 

school changed the way he viewed 

police officers. 

“Officers catch a lot of hate, but 

Officer Talley was a good human 

being,” Edwin Hurwitz wrote. “My 

heart goes out to his family, friends, 

and colleagues. 

Talley was remembered for his 

love of family and his bravery at a 

public funeral in Lafayette, Colorado, 

on Tuesday March 30th-- one 

week after giving his life as the first 

police officer to arrive at the King 

Soopers store where a gunman 

killed him and nine others. 

“This is part of that bravery, in 

that, rightfully so, everyone in that 

store that fateful day ... was trying 

to get out,” Father Dan Nolan, parochial 

vicar at Our Lady of Mount 

Carmel in Littleton, told mourners, 

including the slain officer’s family 

and scores of law enforcement 

officers. 

“But some were trying to get in. It 

was all of you -- officers, lawmen, 

law enforcement. Going into harm’s 

way, going into the mouth of hell. 

And one did not return. So, this is 

for you. 

“That is a risk every day you put 

on your badges and take that risk. 

A day like any other day. Officer 

Eric Talley put on his badge, put on 

his uniform, put on his duty belt, 

not knowing that would be the last 

time.” 

Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold 

remembered that Talley became a 

cop at the age of 41 after a career 

as an IT professional. 

“Eric didn’t need to become a 

police officer,” she said, “but he felt 

a higher calling.” 

His bravery and quick action, the 

chief said, saved dozens of innocent 

lives a week ago. 

Sgt. Adrian Drelles, Talley’s supervisor, 

said the officer’s children are 

“a direct reflection” of their father. 

“His kids are living legacy of Eric’s 

impact on this world,” Drelles said. 

Talley’s children “gave him comfort” 

as he broke the news of his death to 

their mother, Drelles said. 

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis recalled 

Talley’s sacrifices, large and small. 

“Officer Talley gave his life just as 

he lived it: in the service of others,” 

the governor said. “Although it will 

be painful, it’s also a joy to remember 

Officer Talley for who he was. 

It’s a sign of a life well lived when 

you’re beloved like Officer Talley.” 

After the service, the flag that 

draped Talley’s casket was gently 

folded. A final ceremonial “end of 

watch” broadcast was made in honor 

of the officer. 

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First City in US to End Qualified Immunity 

NYPD officers are no longer protected from civil 

lawsuits after city council passes police reform. 

By Taylor Romine, CNN 

Unions representing NYPD officers 

were strong opposed to the 

reform legislation approved by 

the city council. 

The New York City Council 

passed a series of reforms for 

the New York Police Department 

on Thursday, including ending 

qualified immunity for officers, 

which protected them against 

civil lawsuits. 

The city is the first in the nation 

to end qualified immunity according 

to Council Speaker Corey 

Johnson. 

The package of legislation included 

five bills and three resolutions 

that provide additional 

oversight and require more 

transparency from the department. 

The city council also 

adopted a policing reform plan 

mandated by a New York State 

executive order. 

This includes allowing the 

Civilian Complaint Review Board 

(CCRB) to investigate police 

with a history of bias and racial 

profiling complaints, as well as 

giving support to a state bill that 

would give the board final authority 

on discipline recommendations 

for officers. Previously, 

the police commissioner had the 

right to disregard recommendations, 

which was a point of concern 

during the internal review 

of Officer Daniel Pantaleo regarding 

the death of Eric Garner. 

One of the most powerful 

moves by the council was eliminating 

qualified immunity. The 

term refers to a legal principle 

that protects government officials 

from civil suits alleging 

they violated a person’s rights 

-- and which is a hotly debated 

topic across the country. By 

creating a new local civil right 

through legislation, New York 

City residents will be protected 

against unreasonable search and 

seizure and excessive force, and 

bans officers from using qualified 

immunity as a defense. 

Other legislation passed includes 

mandating a quarterly 

report on all traffic stops, the 

Department of Transportation 

taking over investigations for all 

crashes involving serious injury 

and supporting a state bill that 

would require new officers to 

live within city lines. Press passes 

for media outlets will now be 

issued through the Mayor’s Office 

of Media and Entertainment instead 

of by the NYPD as well. 

The set of legislation was 

formed over a “months-long 

engagement process” with the 

New York City Police Reform and 

Reinvention Collaborative, which 

worked with the input of stakeholders, 

experts and the community, 

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 

office said. 

“We believe the plan ratified 

today by the City Council reflects 

the themes brought forward with 

reforms that center squarely on 

bringing an end to such policing, 

the criminalization of poverty, 

and the lack of transparency and 

accountability in the NYPD,” a 

statement from the Collaborative 

Co-Sponsors Jennifer Jones Austin, 

Wes Moore, and Arva Rice 

said. “We know there is more to 

be done. Now the work begins 

to implement this plan without 

delay, and ensure that the City’s 

budget is fully aligned.” 

De Blasio also praised the 

legislation and thanked the 

co-sponsors and other city leaders 

for their efforts. 

“These reforms will confront 

centuries of over policing 

in communities of color and 

strengthen the bonds between 

police and community,” de Blasio 

said. “Together, we’ll make 

our city safer and fairer for generations 

to come.” 

De Blasio’s office said that all 

initiatives will be launched, with 

some fully implemented, in 2021. 

The city will also launch a commitments 

tracker on May 1 to 

monitor their progress, they said. 

In a statement to CNN, Police 

Commissioner Dermot Shea expressed 

concern over the legislation, 

specifically noting his 

inability to have the final say on 

discipline. 

“Right now, the commissioner 

hires them, trains them, asks 

them to go in harm’s way to keep 

New Yorkers safe and if an officer 

breaks the rules, I discipline 

them and if necessary, fire them,” 

Shea said. “If I am not doing that 

the right way, I am accountable. 

The buck stops here. To take that 

away from the Commissioner, 

ask yourself who has the accountability 

then?” 

“No other city agency uses 

that system nor does the FBI, the 

Secret Service, or the Marines. 

There is a reason for that. You 

need to know where the buck 

stops,” he continued. 

A coalition of several New York 

City police unions circulated roving 

billboards around the city on 

Thursday to express their strong 

opposition to the legislation. 

The New York City Police 

Benevolent Association (PBA), 

which represents approximately 

24,000 police officers, was one 

of the most vocal opposition 

leaders in the reform effort. 

PBA President Patrick J. Lynch 

issued a searing statement in 

response to the legislation’s passage. 

“New Yorkers are getting shot 

and police officers are out on 

the street, all day and all night, 

trying to stop the bloodshed,” 

Lynch said. “Where are these City 

Council members? Safe at home, 

hiding behind their screens and 

dreaming up new ways to give 

criminals a free pass. It won’t 

get better unless New Yorkers 

shame the politicians into doing 

their job.” 

The Legal Aid Society, which 

is a major player in holding the 

NYPD accountable, also opposed 

the legislation, saying that the 

reforms ignored the community’s 

calls for investment in non-police 

resources. 

“Mayor de Blasio had a genuine 

opportunity to implement 

urgently needed policing reforms,” 

said Tina Luongo, Attorney-in-Charge 

of the Criminal 

Defense Practice at The Legal 

Aid Society. “He failed to do that 

and instead produced a plan that 

at best glosses over the deeply 

rooted systemic problems within 

the NYPD that plague the New 

Yorkers we serve.” 


Oklahoma Chief Killed by One of His Own Detectives. 

Former Oklahoma officer found 

guilty of murdering police chief. 

MANNFORD, Okla. – Former 

Mannford, Okla., police officer 

Michael Nealey has been found 

guilty of the second-degree 

murder of Mannford Police Chief 

Lucky Miller. 

Nealey killed Miller inside a 

Florida hotel room in November 

2019 while they were in the state 

for a law enforcement conference 

in Pensacola. 

Court documents state that 

other hotel guests complained 

about the noise coming from the 

room that Nealey and Miller were 

in; one witness reported hearing a 

man yell, “Stop it, Mike!” 

A maintenance worker who 

went inside the room told deputies 

he saw Nealey on top of Miller, 

who was laying on the floor. 

Deputies arrived and found that 

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Miller had no pulse. Also, his face 

showed signs that he was beaten, 

including a swollen right eye. 

“He is a young man that will be 

deeply missed by our community 

and by myself personally because 

I considered him a friend,” said 

Joe Van Tuyl, the Superintendent 

of Stroud Public School at Miller’s 

funeral. 

Illinois State Trooper Killed in Patrol Vehicle Accident 

PESOTUM, Ill. (WREX) -- An 

Illinois State Police Trooper is 

dead after a single-car crash 

Thursday March 25th. 

Around 10:42 a.m., ISP says 

Trooper Todd Hanneken was on 

duty and crashed his squad car 

into a pole and then hit a tree. 

Trooper Hanneken was airlifted 

to a hospital where he later died 

around 11:45 a.m. 

“It is with profound heartache 

and unfathomable sadness that 

I inform you of the death of 

Trooper Todd Hanneken. We are 

asking the public to respectfully 

give consideration to the family 

of Trooper Hanneken and the 

ISP while we grieve and work 

through this tragedy,” stated Director 

Brendan Kelly. 

It is unclear what caused 

Trooper Hanneken’s squad car to 

crash, police are still investigating. 

Hanneken started as a cadet in 

the Illinois State Police Academy 

on June 1, 2000. After graduation, 

he was assigned to District 

15 in Oakbrook. He transferred 

to District 10 patrol in Pesotum 

on December 1, 2002. He then 

was assigned to the Commercial 

Vehicles Unit in District 10 in November 

2017. He transferred back 

to Pesotum patrol in July 2018. 

His most recent rank was Senior 

Master Trooper. 

Hanneken received the Medal 

for Honor at the Illinois State Police 

Awards Ceremony on October 

30, 2019 for pulling a man from a 

burning vehicle on May 8, 2018. 

Hanneken was laid to rest a 

week later. Hanneken, 45, served 

with the Illinois State Police for 

20 years. He is survived by his 

wife Shelley, his two sons, Ben 

and Nick, his brother Chad, his 

mother Vickie and father, retired 

Illinois State Police Trooper Jerry 

Hanneken. 


CAPITOL POLICE 

Car Rams into Police at Capitol Barricade; Officer Killed. 

“His death has left a gaping void in our lives that will never be filled.” 

WASHINGTON — The 18-year 

U.S. Capitol Police veteran 

killed in the line of duty is being 

remembered as a man with 

a sense of humor who loved 

baseball and golf and was most 

proud of one particular title: Dad. 

William “Billy” Evans, 41, was 

killed Friday April 2, when a vehicle 

rammed into Evans and another 

officer at a barricade just 

100 yards from the Capitol. The 

driver, Noah Green, 25, came out 

of the car with a knife and was 

shot to death by police, officials 

said. Investigators believe Green 

had been delusional and increasingly 

having suicidal thoughts. 

U.S. Capitol Police officer 

William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year 

veteran and a member of the department’s 

first responders unit. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck 

Schumer, D-N.Y., and House 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., 

announced Tuesday that Evans 

will lie in honor in the United 

States Capitol Rotunda on April 

13, a tribute reserved for the 

nation’s most eminent private 

citizens. 

The U.S. Capitol Police also 

released a statement from Evans 

family, saying: “His death has left 

a gaping void in our lives that 

will never be filled.” 

Evans, a father of two, grew 

up in North Adams, Massachusetts, 

a close-knit town of about 

13,000 in the northwest part of 

the state. 

Jason LaForest knew Evans 

for more than 30 years. He was 

a close friend of Evans’ older 

sister, Julie, and recalled Evans 

as a prankster who made sure 

the subjects of his jokes laughed 

as well. 

“As a young kid, Billy, of 

course, was the annoying little 

brother of one of my best 

friends, a title which he held 

on to for most of his life,” said 

LaForest, a North Adams city 

councilman. “But it was a joy to 

watch him grow up and become 

a talented athlete and a dedicated 

police officer, and, of course, 

the role in life that he loved the 

most, which was a dad.” 

Sports, particularly baseball, 

was another important part of 

Evans’ life. 

“He came from a long line 

of family members that loved 

baseball and especially the Boston 

Red Sox,” LaForest said. “He 

excelled in baseball and enjoyed 

playing baseball most of his life. 

It’s a passion that he instilled in 

his children.” 

Evans’ father, Howard, died 

about seven years ago. His mother, 

Janice, still lives in Massachusetts. 

He attended Western New 

England University, graduating in 

2002 as a criminal justice major. 

He joined the Capitol Police the 

next year. 

Robert E. Johnson, the university’s 

president, said in a statement 

that Evans was a member 

of the school’s baseball and 

bowling teams and the campus 

activities board. He said that 

Evans’ friends at the university 

described him as “extremely 

welcoming and friendly, humble, 

and always willing to help 

others.” 

John Claffey, a professor of 

criminal justice, said that when 

news of Evans’ death first aired, 

he had the sense that he knew 

that smile. “I immediately said 

that’s a face I recognize,” Claffey 

said. 

He recalled Evans as a student 

who knew what he wanted to do 

— a “very focused kid.” 

Over the weekend, Claffey 

received four calls from former 

students who just wanted to 

talk to him about Evans. 

“This has shaken a lot of 

people’s worlds,” he said. “A lot 

of people from Western New 

England, who haven’t been here 

in 18 years, it’s still having an 

impact on them.” 

Members of Evans family said 

in the statement through the 

U.S. Capitol Police that the most 

important thing in Evans’ life 

was his two children, Logan and 

Abigail. 

“His most cherished moments 

were those spent with them 

-- building with Lego, having 

lightsaber duels, playing board 

games, doing arts and crafts, 

and recently finishing the Harry 

Potter series,” the family said. 

“He was always so eager to 

show how proud he was of everything 

they did. Any opportunity 

to spend time with his children 

brightened both their lives 

and his. Their dad was their hero 

long before the tragic events of 

last week.” 

The family said Evans was 

proud of his job and that his 

friendship with colleagues near 

the “North Barricade” of the Capitol 

complex was one of the best 

parts of his job. 

“We hold them in our hearts, 

as we know they acutely share 

our grief,” the family’s statement 

read. 

Lawmakers issued a wave of 

statements offering their condolences 

and gratitude to Evans 

after the Good Friday attack. 

Capitol Hill aides and members 

of the press corps that cover 

Capitol Hill also weighed in, 

recalling him as friendly and 

professional. 

In a joint statement released 

Tuesday, Schumer and Pelosi said 

they hoped next week’s tribute in 

the Capitol Rotunda would provide 

comfort to Evans’ family and 

express the nation’s gratitude 

to members of the U.S. Capitol 

Police. 

U.S. Capitol Police Officer William 

Evans. May He Rest in Peace. 

36 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 37

WORDS BY MICHAEL BARRON 

T.J. Cleboski, J. Meliski and Falllen Harris County 

Deputy Donald “Pastor Doug” Knowlton 

Lt. Tommy J. Cleboski Deputy John Meliski 

Perhaps the earliest memory 

I have of my grandfather was 

him putting on his Harris County 

Sheriffs uniform and strapping 

on his gun belt. That six-inch .38 

caliber Smith & Wesson seemed 

like a canon to a six-year-old. 

(My brother and I still have 

that very same gun.) He stood 

so proud in that uniform as he 

kissed my grandmother goodbye 

and made his way out the door 

to a waiting sheriff’s car outside. 

I remember looking out the window 

as they pulled away thinking 

that will be me someday, 

and some sixteen years later it 

was. 

I have no recollection of any 

‘war stories’ that my grandfather 

John Meleski might have told. In 

fact, I knew truly little of what 

he did for Buster Kern, the High 

Sheriff of Harris County back 

in the day. It wasn’t until 1983 

that I learned what a hero my 

grandfather really was, and that 

information came in strange but 

somewhat funny way. 

It was a slow Saturday afternoon, 

and I was working the day 

shift out of District 2. My LT. was 

none other than Tommy Cleboski. 

Tommy was somewhat of icon at 

Harris County and according to 

legend, he had worked there for 

50 years or more. It was more 

like 30, but nevertheless it was 

a long time, at least for a rookie 

like me. Despite the fact I saw 

him almost every day, I knew 

little about this cigar smoking 

man other than he reminded me 

of my grandfather. Something 

about elderly polish men all 

looking alike. LOL 

Anyway, I stuck my head inside 

his door to say hello and he immediately 

started interrogating 

the latest rookie to his shift. 

“Barron is it? Come on in and 

have a seat. Tell me something 

about yourself. What the hell 

kind of name is Barron anyway? 

Irish? German? Where your people 

come from? How the hell did 

you end up on day shift? 

I had no idea where to start. 

Well sir… 

“Stop right there. Never, never 

call me SIR. I’m old as dirt and I 

sure as hell don’t need to be reminded 

of it with rookies calling 

me sir.” 

Well okay LT. Anyway, I’m half 

Irish on my dad’s side and polish 

on my mom’s side. 

“What’s your mommas name 

son? 

Meliski sir…I mean Meliski LT. 

“Meliski? What was her first 

name? It wasn’t Victoria was it?” 

Yep, it was. Wait you knew 

her? 

“Victoria Meliski? Went to 

Sacred Heart Academy and her 

daddy’s name was John? Big 

John Meliski was your grandfather?” 

Yes sir? He worked for Buster 

Kern and…. 

“Son you don’t have to tell ME 

who he was. I tried taking your 

momma out once and her daddy 

pulled her out of my 1940 Ford, 

and he said if I ever came around 

again, I’d be looking at the business 

end of a shotgun? 

Wait you dated my mother? 

Never mind, I don’t want to know 

the details. So, you knew my 

grandfather? I guess in a way I 

ended up here because of him. 

He was larger than life to me 

and I guess I always wanted to 

grow up to be like him. In fact, 

Jack Heard agreed to give me his 

badge number when I started. 

“Well let me tell you about 

your grandfather. Besides wanting 

to kick my ass on a regular 

basis, he was pretty much the 

reason I joined up too. Buster 

Kern hired damn near everyone 

that applied back in the day, but 

when they asked me if I knew 

anyone that worked for Buster I 

said, I know John Meliski and his 

daughter Victoria.” 

Wait, you told them my grandfather 

threatened to kick your 

ass for dating his daughter? 


“Yes sir, damn sure did and 

they said anyone with enough 

balls to even think about running 

around with big John’s kid was 

damn sure good enough to carry 

a badge. They hired me right 

then and there.” 

No Shit! 

“You know, back in the day, 

your grandfather was somewhat 

of legend after he pulled an 

asshole out of an outhouse for 

shooting another deputy. They 

beat the crap out of that guy 

even though he had been shot 

and was bleeding like a stuck 

pig? Harris County lost a good 

man that day. 

Wait. What happened? 

“Big John and another deputy 

had answered a shot fired call 

on Darwin, just off the Eastex 

Freeway. Of course, it wasn’t a 

freeway back then, more like a 

wide-open road. When they got 

there, this crazy old man was 

on the porch with a shotgun 

shooting at anyone and everyone 

because someone stole his 

vegetables…” 

Vegetables? 

“Yep…tomatoes, I think. As 

soon as they arrived the old man 

ran around behind the house and 

disappeared. They called for help 

and that’s when Pastor Doug and 

his reserve Earl showed up. 

Wait! Pastor Doug? They called 

in a priest? What the hell… 

“No. Doug Knowlton was a 

deputy and an ordained Methodist 

minister. He preached at 

a church over on the mail route 

every Sunday. He was the nicest 

guy trying to save everyone on 

Sunday and then busted their 

ass come Monday on the street. 

Anyway, Doug and Earl showed 

up and helped look for this old 

crazy motherfucker and Pastor 

noticed mud tracks leading from 

the back of the house to the outhouse…” 

Outhouse? 

“Yes Barron, this was way 

before indoor plumbing and 

air conditioning ...anyway Doug 

yelled for them to come around 

back and as soon as he did the 

old man shot right through that 

outhouse and those shotgun 

pellets hit Pastor right in the 

neck and chest. But Pastor had 

the Lord with him for at least a 

few more seconds, because as 

he was falling, he emptied that 

revolver right through the shitter 

door and hit the old man just 

above his eye. Big John and Earl 

ran to the back and while Earl 

helped Pastor your grandfather 

jerked the old man out of the 

shitter and commenced to beating 

the crap out of him…. did 

you see how I used crap and he 

was in an outhouse.” 

Yeah, you’re a regular Johnny 

Carson. 

“Anyway, Earl loaded Pastor 

in his car and took him to the 

hospital while John waited on 

an ambulance to come get the 

old man. But Pastor Doug died 

on the way to the hospital, bleed 

out in the back seat. He was only 

31 years old and just the nicest 

guy you’d ever wanna meet. 

At the time, I think he was only 

like the seventh or eighth Harris 

County Deputy to ever get 

killed while on duty. His service 

was the largest I had ever been 

to at the time. Damn near half 

the county showed up. After the 

funeral, Buster presented your 

grandfather with a medal for 

capturing the old man. I remember 

a picture on the front page 

of the old Tribune Newspaper 

with John Meliski holding this 

bloody old man up by the collar 

dragging him through the 

dirt. Seemed like the headline 

said something like ‘Hero Deputy 

takes down Deputy Killer.’ 

Yeah son, your grandfather was 

something else.” 

So, what did he think about 

you working at the SO? And did 

you ever take his daughter…my 

mom out again? 

“Well, that’s a whole other 

story there, but he did make it a 

point to let me know that Deputy 

or not, that shotgun was still 

waiting for me if I came around 

again.” 

From that day on, Tommy 

Cleboski was like family to me. 

Hell according to him, he WAS 

almost family…but let’s not go 

there. Over the next few years, 

Tommy told me several more 

stories about the good old days 

and Big John Meliski. I wish that 

my grandfather had lived longer 

and had the chance to share his 

days as a Deputy Sheriff with his 

grand kids and see one of them 

follow in his footsteps. It was 

also an honor for me to wear his 

badge number thanks to Sheriff 

Jack Heard. 

Lt. Tommy Cleboski passed 

away in 1994 after serving 40 

years with the Harris County 

Sheriff’s Office. Hearing he 

had passed, was like losing 

my grandfather all over again. 

Never again would I hear all the 

great war stories about Big John 

Meliski and Tommy Cleboski. 

Both were heroes to me and 

larger than life. I only hope that 

law enforcement officers today 

continue to be their grandkids 

heroes. 

WINNING FOR INJURED LEOS 

ALL OVER TEXAS 

THE 

JAMES WOOD 

LAW FIRM 

® 

MILLION DOLLAR ADVOCATES FORUM® 

MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR ADVOCATES FORUM® 

® 

The Top Trial Lawyers in America® 

CAPITAL BASED, STATEWIDE REPRESENTATION 

LINEOFDUTYLAW.COM | 512.692.9266 

PRINCIPAL OFFICE: AUSTIN, TEXAS 


®

WORDS BY AN LAPD OFFICER INSIDE THE BORDERLINE BAR 

Six Unarmed Cops / One Shooter 

The following incident occurred 

on November 7, 2018. Unfortunately, 

shootings like this continue to 

play out all across our country 

on a somewhat regular basis. 

The most recent was an active 

shooter inside a grocery store in 

Colorado that claimed ten lives 

including Police Officer Eric Talley. 

The aftermath is always the 

same no matter where it occurs. 

In nearly every shooting there are 

those, both ordinary citizens as 

well as responding officers, who 

rush towards the shooter to stop 

the carnage. Ultimately though, 

dozens of innocent citizens and 

first responders are killed before 

the gunman is either killed, commits 

suicide or taken into custody. 

So, what’s different about this 

story? There were six off-duty 

officers inside when the shooting 

started. Unfortunately, in California 

it’s illegal for off-duty officers 

to conceal carry inside a club 

that sells alcohol. So, six officers 

and their wives and girlfriends, 

knew the risk when they went in. 

But they all come here often, and 

they had a plan in case something 

did go down. Park their cars 

with guns accessible near the 

side exit, sit as close to that door 

as possible and have at least 

one person in the group watching 

the front door. But the BBG, 

(what they called the Borderline 

Bar & Grill) was a quiet place and 

outside of a few drunks now and 

then, it’s a decent place to hang 

out. Two of the six officers had 

worked security there in the past 

before joining an undercover task 

force. But since it was a Wednesday 

night, the only security was 

a bouncer sitting outside the 

front door. The following article 

is what the mainstream news 

printed. The bolded paragraphs 

are taken from the officers inside 

the bar when the shooting 

started. And once again, you can 

see what a different picture the 

media paints as to what actually 

goes down. 

THOUSAND OAKS, CA – It was 

college night at the Borderline 

Bar and Grill, which describes 

itself as Ventura County’s largest 

country dance hall and live-music 

venue. Located in Thousand 

Oaks California, a city of 130,000 

located northwest of Los Angeles 

and 

in 2018 

it was 

ranked 

as the 

“third 

safest 

city in 

the US,” 

according 

to FBI 

crime stats. 

On this particular night, there 

were over 250 people inside 

the bar, many of them college 

students drawn by the “college 

country night” promotion. Also, 

inside, were six off-duty police 

officers from various law enforcement 

agencies. All were 

there just to enjoy a night off 

and not working security. Since 

it was a Wednesday and the 

crowds were not nearly the size 

as weekends, the only security 

that night was a security guard 

posted at the door. 

It was just past 10pm when 

our little group met up at the 

BBG. It was our weekly ritual 

to all go out and eat and then 

meet up for drinks and some 

dancing at the BBG. Wednesday 

was always a pretty quiet 

night especially when they 

ran their college special. I 

say quiet because outside of 

a few drunk college students 

getting loud, there weren’t 

any fights or red neck assholes 

causing problems. My 

buddy Pete and I have worked 

extra jobs here in the past 

and we knew just about all 

the staff. The only problem 

going to the BBG was it’s a 

90/10 establishment. That 

means 90% of their sales are 

alcohol and 10% food. Which 

also means regardless of who 

you are, you can’t conceal 

carry inside. Only uniformed 

officers were legal to carry 

inside. Which meant we had 

to leave our guns in our cars, 

but we always parked on the 

side of the building near the 

exit door. And then sit as 

close to that door as possible 

once inside. As we walked up 

to the entrance, we stopped 

to say hi to Sean who was 

working part-time as bouncer/bar 

tender. Sean was probably 

the oldest guy working 

there on any given day, but 

he enjoyed the work and 

watched over the younger 

students that worked there 

as well. We made our way inside 

and noticed it was pretty 

busy for College Wednesday. 

Our regular table near the 

exit was taken, so we wound 

up sitting near the back. But 

it was all good. We ordered 

drinks and talked about anything 

but work. 

At 11:18 p.m. Pacific time. Chris 

Brown’s “Turn Up the Music” was 

blaring on the dance floor. Just 

outside a man in dressed in all 

black clothing approached the 

front door. The security guard 

saw the man approaching and 

started to question him as he 

looked out of place for someone 

coming to college night. 

But before he could say a word, 

the gunman, identified as David 

Long, shot 48-year-old Sean Adler 

point blank with .45-caliber 

handgun, and walked inside the 

bar. 

I guess it was around 11:15 

that I heard what sounded 

like a car backfiring in the 

parking lot, but the music 

was so loud I couldn’t really 

tell. I saw the front door 

opening just a second or 

two later and that’s when I 

saw the shooter for the first 

time. He was dressed in all 

black and carrying a Glock. 

The backfire I thought I heard 

was the gunman shooting our 

friend Sean point blank in the 

head. 

Inside, the first person to see 

the gunman was David Anderson, 

23, of Newbury Park, Ca. 

who ironically had survived the 

mass shooting at the Route 91 

Harvest country music festival 


in Las Vegas. That event back 

in October 2017 left 58 people 

dead and hundreds more injured. 

Now when he went out, Anderson 

liked to keep his eyes on the 

door. 

“Looking at the door on this 

night, I saw the gunman enter 

the club and raise a gun. I knew 

exactly what it was, the moment 

it was,” Anderson said. 

“He took two to three steps 

in, and his stance and the way 

that he was aiming at everyone 

was very uniform and you could 

tell he had training,” Anderson 

said. “And it was like slow motion. 

I watched the gun.” Anderson 

estimated that he fired 10 to 

15 times. “He had a very stern, 

straight-faced, focused face, and 

he never say anything.” 

Long first killed the cashier, 

then started shooting at the 

patrons. He fired a total of 61 

rounds and threw several smoke 

bombs. Many of the victims died 

in the first few minutes of the 

shooting while they were lying 

on the floor or trying to charge 

at Long. 

The minute he fired the 

first round was the instant I 

yelled shooter and grabbed 

my wife and pushed her under 

the table. He fired multiple 

rounds within seconds and 

threw at least two smoke 

grenades into the crowd. Once 

the smoke filled the room, 

it was nearly impossible to 

see where the shooter was. 

Except that when he fired a 

shot, a laser on his gun would 

light up and you could see 

the laser line through the 

smoke. We all knew we had 

to get outside, get our wives 

to safety, and get our fucking 

guns. Problem was that the 

shooter was between us and 

the exit. And we had no way 

of knowing how many shooters 

there were. I grabbed the 

table next to us and turned it 

on its side to use as a shield 

and one of my buddies did the 

same. We were sitting ducks 

inside a smoke-filled room 

with people screaming and 

running in every direction. 

“People dived for cover or began 

to run. “It was sheer panic,” 

said Teylor Whittler, 19, who was 

inside the venue at the time. “I ran 

to the side. We all dog-piled on 

top of each other. I kept getting 

stomped on. Just trampled.” She 

said she ran to the back door, 

where people crowded during a 

pause in the gunfire. “And then, 

all of a sudden, a couple of guys 

started running to the back door 

and said, ‘Get up, he’s coming.’” 

Some hid under a pool table 

as the shooter emptied his gun 

and then paused to reload. Some 

threw bar stools through a window 

and escaped. Other survivors 

credited Cody Coffman with 

acting heroically, warning others 

to run. 

“At first I thought it was robbery,” 

said Sarah Deson, 19. “A 

smoke bomb then went off and 

Cody was yelling, ‘Everyone get 

down!’ He then told me to run for 

the front door because the shooter 

had moved further into the bar. 

I ran fast — so fast — all the way 

across the street to a gas station. 

Then I heard the second round of 

shots.” 

Just to our right was a 

plate glass window. I yelled 

to the group, when he stops 

to reload, grab the tables 

and throw them through the 

glass. We’re getting the fuck 

out of here. I could see several 

victims just feet from us 

and knew he might walk up on 

us any minute. And then the 

shots stopped. It was now or 

never. NOW I yelled. I grabbed 

the center post of the bar table 

and launched it as hard as 

I could towards the window. 

It broke a huge hole in the 

glass but too small to climb 

out. Pete got up and did the 

same with his table and the 

entire window fell out and 

the light from the parking lot 

was almost blinding. By this 

time, the shooter had made 

his way towards the back of 

the bar, but I guess he heard 

the glass breaking and fired 

several rounds towards us. I 

grabbed two of the girls and 

pushed them out the window. 

There were several other college 

students that had been 

sitting near the window and 

we shoved them out as well. 

In all we managed to get 20 

people out the window without 

being hit by gunfire, but 

most of us were cutup by the 

shattered glass. As we ran 

around the front of the building, 

I could see at least 2 or 3 

patrol cars and I knew more 

would be on the way. 

Rochelle Hammons, 24, said 

she heard a volley of shots before 

she was able to flee. “All of 

a sudden we heard four shots, 

you know, ‘bang, bang, bang, 

bang.’ Everyone got down on 

the floor. Everyone ducked and 

covered each other,” she said. 

“As everyone crouched down on 

the floor, I figured that my only 

chance would be to run out to 

the nearest exit. I saw the door 

and I ran out as fast as I could.” 

At 11:19 p.m., two California 

Highway Patrol (CHP) officers 

arrived on the scene and Hammons, 

who had made it to her 

car, rolled down her window and 

told the officers “there is an active 

shooter inside, you’ve got to 

hurry, you’ve got to get in there.” 

At 11:22pm nearby, Ventura 

County Sheriff’s Sgt. Helus was in 

his patrol car, talking to his wife, 

when he got the call. He told her 

he loved her before hanging up 

and moving toward the bar. At 

11:24 Helus told the dispatcher he 

was outside the entrance with 

two California Highway Patrol 

officers. “I’m going in.” 

The three made their way 

across the parking lot towards 

the building. At 11:25 Helus and 

one of the CHP officers entered 

the front door while the second 

CHP officer went around 

to the back door. Once inside, 

Helus and the CHP Officer almost 

instantly came under fire from 

Long, who had been monitoring 

their movements through the 

nine security cameras visible 

on a monitor in the front office 

where he had been taking shelter. 

In the ensuing gunfight, Helus 

was shot five times by Long, who 

used a laser sight on his pistol 

in the large, darkened, smokefilled 

room. Positioned between 

Long and the CHP officer, Helus 


was also accidentally struck by 

a bullet from the officer’s rifle 

that went through his heart and 

fatally wounded him. Moments 

later, responding Ventura County 

Sheriff’s deputies, who were 

securing the perimeter, located 

and evacuated Helus to safety 

outside. A SWAT team and other 

police officers arrived on the 

scene shortly afterwards. 

As soon as we got around 

to the front of the building, 

we ran into two Ventura 

County Deputies who 

recognized us and saw that 

we were all bleeding and 

covered in blood. “Holy shit, 

you guys were inside?” Yes, 

but our fucking guns are out 

here. I told them I thought 

there was just one shooter 

armed with a Glock and 

smoke bombs. That’s the only 

gun I heard being fired. And 

it’s a fucking nightmare inside. 

Over 200 people when 

it started. I have no idea how 

many were hit. As we were 

talking the shooting started 

all over again. I heard on their 

radio that an officer was 

down. “Officer Down, Officer 

Down…get fucking SWAT in 

here.” By this time the parking 

lot was filled with patrol 

cars from dozens of nearby 

agencies. I could hear at least 

two air units and K9s barking 

in the background. The 

shooting inside was different. 

I could tell it was LEOs firing 

assault rifles. A few minutes 

later, SWAT came out the 

front door with the officer 

that had been hit. I could tell 

immediately that he wasn’t 

going to make it. At this point 

all we could do was help 

those in the parking lot that 

were bleeding from broken 

glass and gunshot wounds. 

I guess it was around 11:40 

when we heard the last single 

gunshot. 

Long stopped shooting victims 

following the exchange of gunfire 

with police. At 11:38 p.m., he 

fatally shot himself in the bar’s 

front office 

For many of those inside, there 

was a grim benefit to being 

young in America during an age 

of massacres: They knew exactly 

what this was, and they knew 

exactly what to do, in the way 

that past generations knew how 

to hide from tornadoes or nuclear 

bombs. 

“They ran out of back doors, 

they broke windows, they went 

through windows, they hid up 

in the attic, they hid in the bathroom,” 

Ventura County Sheriff 

Geoff Dean said. “Unfortunately, 

our young people, people at 

nightclubs, have learned that this 

may happen. They think about 

that.” 

The following day, Sheriff Dean 

identified the deceased officer as 

Sgt. Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran 

of the Ventura department. 

“He died a hero,” said the sheriff, 

with his voice cracking, “because 

he went in to save lives.” 

As to the six officers inside, 

Dean said Los Angeles Mayor Eric 

Garcetti reported on Twitter that 

there were three off-duty LAPD 

officers there at the time, while 

Oxnard police confirmed that 

they had two officers. 

“It’s just amazing, there were 

probably six off-duty police 

officers in there, from a couple 

different agencies,” an emotional 

Dean said. “I’ve already talked 

to a parent that came up and said, 

‘they stood in front of my daughter.’” 

None of them were armed, Dean 

said, and none of them were 

injured. Dean said he had no idea 

what set Long off or what caused 

him to target the bar and kill 

innocent people. Dean went on to 

say that unfortunately this wasn’t 

the first mass shooting, nor would 

it be the last. 

Yes, the following day the 

news media learned six cops 

were inside when the shooting 

started. That we were uninjured 

and OK. And yes, we did 

help as many people as we 

could. But what they didn’t 

mention was, had we been 

allowed to carry inside that 

bar, we could have taken the 

shooter out within seconds. 

We could have saved more 

lives had we been armed. It’s a 

sickening feeling to be in the 

middle of an active shooter 

and not be able to do a damn 

thing to stop it. And of course, 

the very first thing I saw online 

was some politician saying 

we needed more gun control. 

What we needed was OUR 

guns. I do thank GOD for getting 

us all out alive and uninjured. 

I attended Sgt. Helus’ 

funeral a few days later. I was 

almost ashamed to say, “Yes 

I was there, I was inside, and 

I couldn’t do a fucking thing 

to stop it.” And while I agree 

with the Sheriff that this may 

not be the last mass shooting, 

I can tell you for certain, that 

if we or anyone else in that 

bar had been armed, we could 

have taken that asshole out 

and Sgt. Helus would still be 

alive. 


Why Solo-Officer 

Active Shooter 

Response Should 

be Trained. 

Active shooter incidents create a 

time problem for innocent victims 

and the emergency responders 

trying to save their lives. 

By Todd Fletcher 

This article was originally written in June 2016 

and updated on February 22, 2018 and again on 

March 30, 2021. Does your department support 

single officer response? 

The events that took place at Columbine High 

School in Colorado on April 20, 1999, changed 

the way law enforcement trained and responded 

to active shooter incidents. The pictures and 

accounts from this act of cowardice produced 

tears and intense anger. Officers, trainers, supervisors 

and command staff recognized the need 

for a different approach. 


Since then, we have had numerous 

examples of active 

shooter incidents. Although these 

acts of terrorism have differences, 

they all share one common 

element: the murderers who 

committed these acts have a 

clear desire to kill as many people 

as possible. 

The traditional response of 

forming perimeters and calling 

in specialized teams no longer 

applies to active shooter incidents. 

These murderers intend to 

terrorize and kill as many people 

as possible. Initially, training 

evolved to emphasize a small 

group of officers meeting up, 

getting into some sort of predetermined 

formation – diamond, 

triangle, T and whatnot – and 

“going to the sound of guns.” But 

an improved method grew out 

of the reality that these tactics, 

as good as they sound, have not 

worked as envisioned. 

SOLO OFFICER RESPONSE 

During past active killer/shooter 

training classes, I’ve listened 

to instructors explain some of 

these team concepts before going 

out of their way to belittle a 

newer tactic that has been gaining 

traction over the past seven 

or eight years – the solo officer 

response. I’ll give this instructor 

the benefit of the doubt and 

chalk it up to ignorance and a 

lack of understanding regarding 

solo officer response tactics. 

Most instructors who haven’t 

been exposed to these tactics 

believe hunting cells are safer 

for officers and prevent blue-onblue 

shootings, and they’re right. 

However, this completely misses 

the fundamental problem with 

the hunting cell concept. Active 

shooter incidents create a time 

problem for innocent victims and 

the emergency responders trying 

to save their lives. 

If officers are trained to wait 

for additional personnel to arrive 

to form a hunting cell, then more 

innocent people will be hurt or 

killed. Ron Borsch, PACT Consultant 

Group, was perhaps the first 

person to introduce me to the 

solo-officer response concept. 

He believes time is the number 

one enemy facing officers and 

innocent victims during active 

shooter incidents. His statistics 

show active shooters target 

most of their victims inside the 

first several minutes. He says 

the average time for calls to be 

made to 911, the information dispatched 

to officers, and officers 

to arrive on scene could be five 

to seven minutes or longer. 

What this means is we have 

between one and three minutes 

to locate and stop the killing. It’s 

a race against the clock to save 

innocent lives. Just look at the 

September 28, 2016, incident in 

at Townville Elementary School 

in Townville, SC. The first officer 

arrived on scene seven minutes 

after the first call to 9-1-1. 

Ask yourself this question: How 

many rounds can I fire accurately 

in one to three minutes? The 

answer probably depends on 

how much ammunition you can 

carry. The same is true for these 

murderers. 

Unless multiple officers are 

arriving at the same time, many 

trainers have concluded the best 

tactic may be a solo-officer 

response. Of course, a specific 

incident may dictate otherwise, 

but the first officer to arrive at 

the scene is the first officer to 

arrive at the fight. According to 

Don Alwes, the lead instructor 

for the National Tactical Officers 

Association’s Police Response to 

Active Shooter and Workplace 

Violence courses, in nearly 660 

documented active killer incidents, 

no known incidents have 

been stopped using one of the 

predetermined team formations. 

A SWARMING RESPONSE 

Team tactics may be used 

depending on the context of the 

event. However, if innocent people 

are still being killed when 

the first officer arrives on scene, 

the deciding factor should be 

getting life-saving assistance to 

innocent victims quickly. Providing 

rapid life-saving assistance 

to innocent victims is the basic 

premise of the solo-officer response. 

Individual officers making 

multiple entries into a large 

building can move quicker and 

cover more ground than multiple 

officers in a single formation 

entering from the same access 

point. 

George T. Williams of Cutting-Edge 

Training is another 

advocate of multiple officers 

making multiple entries from 

different access points. He believes 

our current approach to 

active killer training is based on 

the faulty belief that law enforcement 

officers will be able 

to respond in sufficient numbers 

to stop the killing. He believes 

a “swarm” of officers entering 

from multiple access points will 

cause the active killer to feel 

surrounded. 

Active killers do not want to 

face armed police officers coming 

toward them from multiple 

directions. These murderers are 

looking for easy victims. Williams 

believes that, “Officers 

utilizing a multiple-angle attack 

are likely to create flanking 

problems for these murderers 

effectively slowing or stopping 

the killing. This anxiety provides 

a chance for a tactical resolution 

either from the killer developing 

an inward focus rather than killing 

(survival) or a quicker preplanned 

resolution (suicide).” 

The argument that hunting 

cells can prevent blue-on-blue 

shootings is a valid argument 

that is easily addressed in training. 

Solo-officer responses to 

active shooting incidents can 

create a risk of blue-on-blue 

shootings. However, as Gordon 

Graham says, predictable is preventable. 

Solo-officer response 

training can make officers aware 

of these risks. Drills and scenarios 

can be scripted to test 

their responses when faced with 

these conditions. Officers need 

to be reminded to shoot what 

they know, not what they think. 

Threat assessment is critical in 

any use-of-force situation, and 

active shooting incidents are no 

different. 

A SOLID HISTORY 

The reality is solo officer tactics 

have a proven track record. 

Getting officers to the scene 

quickly and responding with 

appropriate force is not a new 

active shooter tactic. Don Alwes 

reports that nearly 63% of active 

killer incidents stopped by law 

enforcement were stopped by 

a single officer. Alwes adds that 

around 30% of these incidents 

are stopped by a two-officer 

response. Adding these numbers 

up proves it: 93% of active shooter 

incidents stopped by law 

enforcement are stopped by one 

or two officers. 

Solo officer response had been 

used in several incidents before 

the tragedy of Columbine: 

• On October 16, 1991, a Texas 

Department of Public Safety officer 

ran into a crowded restaurant 

in Killeen (Texas) during 

an active shooter incident. This 

officer chased the mass murderer 

into a bathroom where 

the murderer killed himself. 

Nearly 80 people were inside the 

restaurant when this occurred. 

23 people were killed and 20 

were injured. Is there any doubt 

more people would have been 

killed if the officer had waited 

for additional cover? 

• On June 20, 1994, a lone, 

24-year-old Air Force Security 

Policeman Andy Brown stopped 

an active killer at Fairchild AFB. 

This murderer killed five people 

and wounded 22 others. If 

the killer had not been stopped 

by this courageous young man, 

there is little doubt more people 

would have been injured and 

killed. For more information on 

this incident, visit www.fairchildhospitalshooting.com. 

Recent active killer incidents 

where solo-officer response tactics 

were used include: 

•Austin, TX – Downtown 

(November 2014) 

•Garland, TX – Curtis Culwell 

Center (May 2015) 

•Hesston, KS – Excel Corp 

(February 2016) 

•Antigo, WI – Antigo High 

School (April 2016) 

•Taunton, MA – Silver City Galleria 

Mall (May 2016) 

•Bristol, TN – Days Inn 

(July 2016) 

•St. Cloud, MN – Crossroads 

Center Mall (September 2016) 

•Columbus, OH – Ohio State 

University (November 2016) 

•Lexington, KY – Transylvania 

University (April 2017) 

•New York, NY – West Side 

Hwy Bike Path (October 2017) 

•Lenexa, KS – Costco 

(November 2017) 

All of these incidents were 

stopped by officers who quickly 

responded to the scene to confront 

the killers. None of these 

incidents were stopped by officers 

utilizing traditional formations 

or “hunting cells.” 

CONCLUSION 

This can be a difficult concept 

for many instructors, command 

staff and officers to grasp. Officer 

safety should not be the reason 

instructors fail to consider 

including solo-officer response 

tactics in their active shooter 

training curriculum. Officer safety 

is about mitigating risk, not 

avoiding risk. 

There’s nothing safe about a 

single officer running to confront 

a mass murderer. If additional 

assistance is seconds away, officers 

should wait and go in as a 

team. Two sets of eyes, ears and 

weapons are better than one. If 

additional assistance is minutes 

away, time is the first and worst 

enemy. What if your child needs 

to be saved from being victimized 

by a mass murderer? We 

would all want officers to contact 

and eliminate the threat as 

quickly as possible to save our 

child. 


Todd Fletcher is the owner and 

lead instructor for Combative 

Firearms Training, LLC providing 

training for law enforcement 

firearms instructors from coast 

to coast. He has over 25 years of 

training experience as a firearms 

and defensive tactics instructor. 

He retired after more than 25 

years as a full-time police officer 

and over 31 years of law enforcement 

experience. 


Will You Take the 

Active Shooter 

Pledge? 

By Lt. Dan Marcou 

I have taken the pledge 

long ago that if I am 

ever once again in a 

position to do so I will 

move to stop the killing 

immediately. 

Another active shooter/killer 

strikes – this time in a Bolder Colorado 

supermarket – leaving in his 

wake deaths, injuries, mourning and 

these inevitable questions: 

1. Why did he do it? 

2. What do we do to prepare/prevent 

these incidents? 

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE CONCLUDED 

Having met active shooters professionally, 

I was drawn to research 

these events extensively and develop 

tactics for not only responding to, 

but also preventing these incidents. 

I have concluded that family, 

teachers, peers, fellow employees, 

mental health professionals 

and good citizens can stop these 

active shooters by taking effective 

action, during the first four 

of the five phases these killers 

travel through. To review the Five 

Phases of the Active Shooter they 

are: 

1. The Fantasy Phase 

2. The Planning Phase 

3. The Preparation Phase 

4. The Approach Phase 

5. Implementation Phase. 

If you don’t stop them in one 

of the first four phases, then you 

are left with one option. To borrow 

an old cavalry term, you must 

as quickly as possible, during the 

Implementation Phase, “Ride to the 

sound of the guns!” 

I have no PHD, but I have discovered 

the answer for why they kill 

can be found in one or more of the 

following categories: 

1. Drug/gang war 

2. Holy war 

3. What for? (The dangerously 

mentally ill) 

4. What for? (They want to give 

fellow humans the proverbial 

“What for!” out of pure hate) 

5. Top score. (They want to become 

famous by killing more than 

anyone else. They will not stop 

killing until they run out of ammunition 

or someone stops them. 

If they are killing with a knife or 

vehicle, they will not run out of 

ammunition. If they are wearing a 

bomb, they must be dissuaded or 

diffused.) 

WHAT YOU HAVE PROBABLY 

DONE TO PREPARE 

Most of you have attended 

some sort of police training on 

active shooter/killer response. 

That training expanded your 

knowledge of these events and, 

in some cases, gave you practical 

options and allowed you to 

practice team tactics to move 

through a building passing 

roll players who were playing 

frightened, wounded and killed 

victims. You joined others in a 

one-trained formation or another 

in search of roll player(s) 

pretending to be the culprit. You 

practiced communication and 

conducted rescues. 

These are excellent opportunities 

to train and prepare to- 


gether. Agencies should continue 

these exercises, but after each 

training concludes, evaluate 

them, and decide if you are even 

nearly duplicating the urgency 

an initial lone responding officer 

faces. 

A DECISION THAT IS YOURS TO 

MAKE 

The fact is that if you are the 

only first responder at one of 

these events or even an offduty/retired 

officer who happens 

to be present, you will realize 

it would be safer to have two, 

three, four, five or even six additional 

officers to assist you. 

However, you also may be keenly 

made aware by the in-progress 

circumstance that every moment 

you wait for additional officers 

to arrive is a moment during 

which innocents are in fear of 

death, or actually being killed. 

I can’t tell you what to do in 

that lonely moment, but I know 

what I will do. I have taken the 

pledge long ago that if I am ever 

once again in a position to do 

so I will move to stop the killing 

immediately. If you are a police 

officer (active, retired, or off-duty) 

consider taking this pledge. 

Remember, when your moment 

arrives, whether you are on-duty, 

off-duty or retired, it is your 

decision to make not mine. 

THE ACTIVE SHOOTER/KILLER 

PLEDGE 

I have personally decided that 

the threats faced by my generation 

of police officers require 

that I always be armed and personally 

committed to furiously 

train to protect those who can’t 

protect themselves in their moment 

of desperate need. 

If I am ever faced with an 

in-progress active shooter/killer 

and I can make a difference, 

I will use my superior attitude, 

superior training, superior tactics 

and superior weapon (superior 

because it is in my trained hands) 

to become an army of one! 

Out of my love for humanity I 

will enter that environment like 

a hate-seeking missile and use 

the chaos created by the killer(s) 

as a distractive device. I will 

move unheard and unseen by the 

killer(s) to a position of advantage. 

Once there – if left with no 

other options and presented with 

the opportunity to stop the killing 

– I will take the shot and make 

the shot. I am the protector of the 

flock, the honorable sheepdog. 

CONCLUSION 

Whether you take the pledge or 

not, prepare brothers and sisters, 

for your moment may be at hand. 


Lt. Dan Marcou is an internationally 

recognized police trainer 

who was a highly decorated 

police officer with 33 years of 

full-time law enforcement experience. 

Marcou’s awards include 

Police Officer of the Year, SWAT 

Officer of the Year, Humanitarian 

of the Year and Domestic Violence 

Officer of the Year. Upon retiring, 

Lt. Marcou began writing. He is a 

co-author of “Street Survival II, 

Tactics for Deadly Encounters,” 

which is now available. His novels, 

“The Calling, the Making of a 

Veteran Cop,” “SWAT, Blue Knights 

in Black Armor,” “Nobody’s Heroes” 

and Destiny of Heroes,” as well 

as his latest non-fiction offering, 

“Law Dogs, Great Cops in American 

History,” are all available at 

Amazon. Dan is a member of the 

Police1 Editorial Advisory Board. 

Have a unique story you’d 

like to share with the 

BLUES readers? 

Send it to: 

bluespdmag@gmail.com. 

Please change all the 

names to protect the innocent 

and to avoid prosecution 

in the event that the 

statute of limitations hasn’t 

expired. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Vocabulary Needs Common Definition 

Do you remember your opening 

days of class in high school 

and college? They were filled 

with looking up definitions of 

terms and other concepts that 

were important in the subject 

being studied. The teacher or 

professor always included the 

most important terms in your 

assigned work. Why? 

The professor knew that in order 

for any productive discussion 

to take place, the definitions of 

relative terms had to be understood. 

It wasn’t just “busy work.” 

In order to discuss and debate 

issues, everyone had to speak 

the same language. 

In our national conversation 

and dialogue about current 

events, there is no agreement or 

even awareness that the vocabulary 

being used has no accepted 

definitions. There is no common 

language being used to address 

issues. This is a huge source of 

miscommunication and a greater 

source of disagreement. 

My issue is that not only do accepted 

definitions not exist, but 

politically correct initiatives also 

charge forward furiously backed 

by progressives who label people 

and actions with terms that 

they believe they, and they alone, 

may use in their own undefined 

manner. In other words, they 

alone have the authority to label 

people with terms that smear 

people and create blacklists. 

They censor people and cancel 

everything from mascots to cartoons 

without offering why they 

alone have the authority to make 

such judgements. There are no 

standards. No opinion is safe. Academic 

freedom is long gone. All 

the things our society have held 

as sacred when it comes to free 

speech is being consigned to the 

flames by progressive hatred. 

Massachusetts is the site of 

some unpleasantness that occurred 

in 1692. We visited Salem 

and the burying ground that 

held the remains of some of 

the nineteen people who were 

executed as a result of being declared 

“witches.” It is difficult to 

imagine a society that loses its 

way so far that lives were lost as 

a result. One of the judges was 

an ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne 

and was prominent in 

labeling people as witches with 

no common definition of what 

specific acts could make one a 

“witch.” The public was forced 

to grovel and live in fear that 

anything they said or did could 

be used to stone them or hang 

them. The people in authority 

listened to cases where it was 

obvious that the parties involved 

simply didn’t like each other. 

In 1953, playwright Arthur Miller 

penned a classic play entitled 

“The Crucible.” The play was a 

dramatization of the witch trials 

of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

The play was a hit on Broadway 

and well received by the public. 

School kids still read the play in 

high school. Although the play 

dramatizes the witch trials, that 

is not what the play is about. 

The play is about another dark 

incident in our history — something 

that is known by its historic 

name: “McCarthyism.” 

The play was written in response 

to the blacklisting of 

“politically incorrect” individuals 

who were suspected of being 

Communists by Senator Joseph 

McCarthy. Lives were ruined. Our 

society was being torn asunder 

by the senator who kept any 

“evidence” in his pocket. Exactly 

what made one a Communist? 

Nobody knew. Was it going into 

the Soviet embassy and applying 

for citizenship or asylum? Perhaps 

it was checking a copy of 

the “Communist Manifesto” out 

of the library. Maybe hosting a 

dinner party where, one spoke 

of the joys of Soviet life. It could 

be that one had a friend that 

booked a tour behind the Iron 

Curtain. Senator McCarthy gave 

no definition of “Communist”, nor 

did he list the qualifications 

of having 

your name put on a 

career ending blacklist. 

He was eventually 

stopped when 

he started accusing 

Army officers of 

being “un-American” 

and President Eisenhower 

finally put his 

foot down. Have we 

learned nothing? 

Alan Dershowitz wrote an 

essay last week (March 19, 2021) 

concerning the firings of two 

Georgetown University Law 

School professors. The professors 

were conducting a Zoom 

class and then the class was 

dismissed. After the students left 

the virtual class, Professor Sandra 

Sellers continued a discussion 

with her colleague, Professor 

David Batson. She agonized 

over the fact that some of her 

black students were at the bottom 

of her class. Batson replied, 

“Mmhmm.” The black students 

complained, and Sellers was 

fired for her “reprehensible” and 

“abhorrent” remarks. Batson resigned 

in lieu of termination due 

to his failure to execute his “bystander 

responsibility.” Dershowitz 

was a professor at Harvard 

Law School for fifty years and 

confirmed that Sellers’ concern 

is shared by an army of professors 

regardless of the professors’ 

race. Not only has Georgetown 

made the discussion of race and 

grades a forbidden topic, keeping 

silent on the matter is no 

longer an option. Georgetown, 

being a law school, should know 

that if there is no policy against 

the private discussion of grades 

between associates, they are 

only enforcing political correctness 

in the same vein as Judge 

Hawthorne and Senator McCarthy. 

A mass murderer killed eight 

people a few days ago. Six of 

the women were Asian and 

two were white. The Houston 

Chronicle’s Erica Greider calls 

the murders the work of white 

supremacy. She has no facts 

to support her conclusion. She 

writes that we mustn’t take the 

word of a murderer about his 

motive. Why? People who kill to 

support an ideology are terrorists 

who further their filthy ideas. 

White supremacists aren’t shy 

about talking up their hatred. 

This particular murderer was 

clearly a religious fundamentalist 

who could not reconcile his 

religious beliefs and his sex life. 

He snapped. He killed people 

employed in the sex trade to lash 

out at a temptation he could not 

withstand. I hope the young man 

is convicted and executed for his 

crimes, but that does not make 

him a white supremacist. 

Journalists like Erica Greider 

no longer write about the details 

of events. Instead, they craft 

a fiction to weave into a larger 

narrative that insists racism (another 

undefined term) is the root 

cause of all of our ills and 

if a reader does not agree 

with her, the reader must 

necessarily be a racist. 

An often overlooked 

American hero was a 

farmer named Giles Corey. 

Giles and his wife, Martha, 

were accused by the mob 

of witchcraft in 1692. Giles 

was arrested and charged 

with witchcraft. The mob 

forced Giles to enter a 

plea, but Giles would not play 

their game. He refused to dignify 

the mob and its kangaroo court 

and, therefore, declined to enter 

a plea. He was man-handled 

and tortured for three days in the 

belief that he would enter a plea. 

Giles would not do it. He could 

not be tried until he entered a 

plea. Giles was knocked to the 

ground and selected for a most 

unusual form of duress: pressing. 

Pressing is a practice that forces a 

person to lay on the ground with 

a sheet of wood covering him or 

her. Large stones are then placed 

on the board causing pain from 

being crushed or “pressed.” The 

mob was ensuring that justice 

not be denied and placed stone 

after stone on Giles’ body. Before 

the life was crushed out of Giles, 

he cried his last words, “More 

Weight!” 

At some point, the hatred of the 

progressive left will not be satisfied 

with killing careers, police 

officers, federal agents, and the 

truth in general. Aided by ideologically 

like-minded journalists 

and judges, honest people will 

suffer the consequences. Giles 

Corey’s heroic act still echoes 

across the centuries. His memory 

serves as a warning and an inspiration. 

Never forget it. 


Meet Houston PDs New Chief of Police 

TROY FINNER: 

A Perfect Fit for Houston 

By Rex Evans 

Over the years, many a Chief 

has come and gone from the 

Houston Police Department. 

Some were great. Some were 

just ok. And some, not so much. 

Those that were just passing 

through, may have tried to make 

their mark on the department, 

but failed miserably. And then 

there are those that demonstrated 

their deep compassion for 

the community as well as the 

Officers of HPD. The Chief’s that 

consistently demonstrated their 

fervent desire for HPD to be the 

absolute best it could be. 

HPD’s new Chief is certainly 

going to be one of the great ones. 

He is not only a God-fearing man, 

but a man who has spent his 

entire career at HPD. He’s also 

a man of the community. Troy 

Finner was born and raised in 

Houston’s Historic Fifth Ward. He 

attended HISD schools and graduated 

from Madison High School. 

Finner earned multiple degrees 

from various colleges and universities, 

constantly expanding 

his knowledge of people, life, 

history and events. But it wasn’t 

just the degrees that made Finner 

the man he is, but his ability to 

show true compassion towards 

all Houstonians regardless of 

who they were. 

Rising through the ranks 

and ultimately becoming the 

Chief of Police in a city as 

large and diverse as Houston, 

is both rewarding as it 

is challenging. You’d best be 

ready for a rough ride. While 

somedays are mundane, 

dealing with policy, personnel, 

and budgeting. Others 

call for drastic measures in 

a city that has reported over 

100 homicides in the first 

three months of 2021. If there 

was ever a Chief to solve 

Houston’s growing crime 

problems, I could think of no 

better man than Troy Finner. 

And I say this from personal 

experience. I’ve known Troy 

since high school, and he is a 

man of stellar character and 

just an all-around good man. 

A man who genuinely cares 

about the Houston Police Department, 

its officers as well 

as its civilian employees. He 

is a man who loves his family 

and remembers where he 

came from. He is never one 

to prejudge, always doing 

what’s right because it’s the 

right thing to do. 

I have watched Chief Finner 

lead by example. He has always 

been Troy the human being 

first, rather than any of the 

ranks or offices he has held in 

his tenured career. Few Chief’s 

ever put this into practice. Now 

to see Troy in charge of one of 

the nation’s largest police departments 

is truly remarkable 

and long overdue. 

It’s unfortunate that Finner 

takes over HPD at such a tumultuous 

time. The shadows 

of corruption, violence and 

danger are facing him on all 

fronts. And yet, even with all 

the overwhelming problems, 

he remains steadfast in his 

plan. His plan? Well, speaking 

as a former Police Chief myself, 

I’d say it’s a solid plan and 

one that more Chiefs of Police 

should abide by…The plan is 

to do the right thing, even if it 

hurts. Now, some would argue 

that’s a fool’s notion or an 

impractical approach to “Modern 

Policing”. I say, “Modern 

Policing” needs some good 

ole common sense now, more 

than ever. We’ve collectively 

lost our way. We’ve become 

so engrossed in legal terms, the 

courts, and what is “politically 

correct” rather than simply doing 

what’s right or what makes the 

most sense. 

Throughout his career, Troy 

never lost his sense of direction. 

He never lost sight of just simply 

finding the best way to treat 

people, even criminals, with fairness 

and common sense to every 

problem. 

I believe Chief Troy Finner 

is going to take the Houston 

Police Department to some 

of the highest ground it has 

ever stood upon in its rich and 

amazing history. I believe he 

will re-instill a sense of pride, 

honor and integrity to the Department 

that has been missing 

for some time. No, it won’t be 

easy. Yes, there will some hard 

days ahead. But I believe he’s 

already on the right track. At 

his swearing in ceremony, he 

wore the time honored, traditional 

badge of a Houston Police 

Chief clearly demonstrating 

his ability to look forward 

while never forgetting where 

he came from. Something we 

could all learn from. 

Congratulations again, to 

a good man and a timeless 

friend, Chief Troy Finner. 



Interview with Chief Finner 

REPRINTED FROM THE HOUSTON 

CHRONICLE 

After Chief Art Acevedo announced 

he was moving to 

Florida to lead the Miami Police 

Department, Mayor Sylvester 

Turner named Troy Finner as 

the Houston Police Department’s 

new top cop. Finner, 54, 

hails from Fifth Ward, grew up 

in Hiram Clarke, and went to 

Madison High School. He joined 

HPD more than 30 years ago. He 

and his wife, Sherrian Finner, 

have five children. 

On Wednesday — the same 

day City Council confirmed his 

appointment — Finner sat down 

with the Chronicle for one of his 

first public interviews. This interview 

has been lightly edited 

for clarity and length. 

Q: Can you talk a little bit 

about how your tenure as chief, 

your thinking, may differ from 

Acevedo’s, and what kind of 

changes you’re expecting to 

make? 

A: I just will tell you this, my 

administration is going to 

be one of building trust. And 

hopefully, one of crushing 

violent crime — focusing in on 

those individuals that are really 

committing violent crime, 

those trigger pullers, as we 

say here in Houston. Building 

trust with our community, and 

being transparent. I think that 

we have some room to improve 

in the way that we release 

body worn camera (videos), 

I’m going to have some meetings 

about that. I don’t want to 

go too deep. But there will be 

a few policy changes on that, 

because I want to work with 

our community members, the 

mayor’s Task Force, and come 

up with a clear policy on how 

we’re going to roll out body 

worn cameras. 

Q: Do you have a sense of when 

you’re going start doing that? 

A: Pretty pretty quick, pretty 

quick. Within weeks. 

Q: Can you talk a little about 

what immediate steps you plan 

to do? Specifically in regards to 

homicides, both preventing and 

solving them? 

A: The biggest crime fighter we 

have with regards to homicides 

is our community and the cooperation 

with the community. 

But there are improvements that 

everybody needs to make — the 

police department. Judges, our 

DAs. Everybody. So for us? To 

answer your question ... we had 

a meeting with the FBI director, 

he came down yesterday, everybody 

was at the table, all of 

our federal partners. So I don’t 

want to go into deep details, 

because we’re going to have a 

few more meetings, but you’re 

going to see everybody on 

board, as a true team — going 

after some of these individuals, 

because it’s a small group of 

them that is committing violent 

crime after violent crime. We’re 

going to identify them, we’re 

going to bring the full force of 

our criminal justice system, the 

locals and the federals, upon 

them. And I hope we’re gonna 

see some results. In regards to 

solving crime, we’ve added 20 

investigators to homicide. I’ll 

get with Chief (Matt) Slinkard 

because I want to, every week 

or every two weeks, look at 

those clearance rates and see 

where they are. If we need to 

add more criminal investigators 

in homicide, that’s what we 

need to do. 

Q: One thing that you mentioned 

was just how important 

the community is as eyes and 


ears for police and helping 

solve a lot of these crimes. 

Obviously, a big issue here is 

community trust with police 

and vice versa. So — and this is 

something you’ve talked about 

extensively — how are you hoping 

to rebuild trust or improve 

trust with police? 

A: You have to have those conversations, 

and I’m going to be 

honest with you — with COVID’s 

challenges, it’s difficult. You 

know, when I’m sitting right 

here looking you in your eyes 

and talking to you, we get a 

feel and a sense of one another 

as compared to on a telephone 

call or a zoom call or whatnot. 

But we can’t use it as an excuse, 

but I’m so glad that more people 

are getting vaccinated. And 

we’re going to be able to roll 

out pretty soon, I pray, to have 

our community meetings to 

get out front with people and 

let them know you know what, 

first of all, what problems do 

you have with us? What can 

we do better? As a police department, 

as a police officer 

on the beat, in your neighborhood? 

How can we do better, 

but anything that we can do to 

build that trust? We’re going 

to do it because, Sinjin, you hit 

it. If there’s no trust, there ain’t 

no cooperation with anybody 

coming to you telling you about 

somebody that’s been victimized 

or if they witness a crime, 

they’re just not going to do it. 

Q: Obviously, the newest policing 

taskforce has issued 

a slew of recommendations. 

When can people expect to see 

real movement on those issues, 

which ones are the most 

important to you, and which 

ones you think will be the most 

challenging? 

A: We need to roll out a report 

between our department and 

the mayor’s office, (of) some 

of the things that we’ve done 

already, but I mentioned one of 

them, the biggest one to me, 

when I’m in a community or 

when I’m talking to the media, 

I just mentioned: body worn 

cameras, ‘when are y’all gonna 

start rolling it out?’” … I’m telling 

you, within weeks, you’re 

gonna hear from myself and the 

mayor on that. That’s huge, but 

also any progress that we’ve 

made, we need to roll that 

report out, so people can just 

know that we’re not just sitting 

on it. We’re doing it, but I don’t 

want to get ahead of the mayor 

on it. But I can tell you it’s a work 

in progress. And the public is going 

to be surprised by some of the 

things that we’re already doing. 

Q: You’ve had a lot of experience 

in your career, but what’s something 

that really stands out when 

you’re thinking about, you know, 

the 30 whatever years? It was 

1990 right, year you were sworn 

in? 

A: Just losing so many officers 

(this year), line of duty deaths, 

three of them from gun violence, 

OK? It’s just been a tough year. 

And it’s been a pull on everybody, 

from our frontline officers all the 

way up to, you know, my level. But 

it reminds me why I signed up 31 

years ago: to make a difference 

and help people when they’re at 

the worst time. And I just want 

to say this, since a lot of people 

talk about the negative, but I’m so 

damn proud of our officers, our 

frontline officers and frontline 

supervisors, that show up every 

day, no matter where we’re going 

through — natural disasters, line 

of duty deaths, they’re showing up 

every day, and continue to serve 

our city and our citizens. 



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The Mental Health Response in 

the Law Enforcement Community 

The Mental Health Response in 

the Law Enforcement Community 

• The Stigma 

• The Training 

• The Buy-In 

As you read this article, please 

keep this in mind, right now 

somewhere in our nation, there 

is a law enforcement officer 

contemplating suicide! They will 

succeed. 

Sadly, to say, at the time of this 

writing, 35 Officers have already 

taken their own lives nationwide. 

Did they exhibit signs? Were those 

signs missed? Did they fall victim 

to a department that has not 

bought into the mental health crisis 

issue of our law enforcement 

officers? 

Why is this? Can it be shame? Is 

it mistrust in how the department 

may react? Or is it fear that there 

will be some sort to reprisal or 

reprimand? Either way, if proper 

tools, training, and support that 

is needed to stay mentally healthy 

is not offered to our officers, then 

we cannot hold these officers accountable 

for the actions that may 

follow. But we do, and there lies 

the problem. 

Most officers go to work every 

day in the hope of making a 

difference. They are willing to 

risk their own life for that of a 

stranger. They deal with public 

and political back lash of those 

who have never walked in their 

shoes and they do this without 

large compensation or media 

praise. They do it for the 

love of community. There 

are very few occupations 

out there that offer such daily 

stressful conditions with little or 

no return. Law enforcement is one 

those occupations. 

As we look at the mental traumas 

our law enforcement face 

day in and day out. Many officers 

feel they have nowhere to turn. No 

one to safely open up too, or that 

no one will listen. Most of them 

are correct in their assumptions. 

The law enforcement culture, 

although getting better is still 

just beginning to understand and 

scratch the surface when it comes 

to post traumatic stress within 

their respective departments. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am 

not saying all departments. There 

are many of them out there offering 

incredibly positive and proactive 

mental health programs for 

their officers. But my question is, 

why only some? Is it Money? Attitude? 

Both? 

When we look at the money 

aspect of it: 

Many budget line-items with regards 

to mental health programs 

are usually found close to or near 

the bottom of the budget spreadsheets. 

You can usually locate 

them below the training budget 

or just above the janitorial cleaning 

supplies. That is right, they 

squeeze mental health in between 

tasers and toilet paper!!! Let us 

just hope they do not run out of 

toilet paper. 

Many smaller departments do 

not even have a line item for a 

mental health program. Many city 

managers in charge of smaller 

departments do not see the need 

for a mental health program. 

What these managers fail to 

realize, a department of 40 officers 

or less can sustain the same 

percentage of mental trauma as 

those of their larger ones If you 

break it down per officer population. 

Trauma is trauma. 

I have heard Police Chiefs say, 

their department does not face 

the same issues or challenges as 

some of their bigger city counter 

parts face. Well, that may be 

true when it comes to crime stats, 

but I do beg to differ on mental 

health, as crime rates may vary 

from city to city, law enforcement 

officers all over the nation face 

the same type of stress risk no 

matter what size of the department 

is. It doesn’t matter if you 

work in Mayberry “BFE” there is 

always that chance Aunt Bee is 

going to go bat shit crazy and hit 

someone with her cast iron pie 

pan and feed the remains to her 

hogs or finding Gomer hanging 

from the barber shop lamp post 

by his belt. Horrible things happen 

everywhere, we can’t turn a 

blind eye to our officer’s mental 

health because of a department 

size or crime rate. Money should 

not be an excuse for mental health 

programs. 

Let’s look on just how far law 

enforcement is behind the eight 

ball on mental health. 

Post-traumatic stress dates 

back far. Far enough that we 

should have been aware of its 

effects. 

Starting with the military, although 

its name has changed 

multiple times, the issue remained 

the same. 

During World War I, it was 

called shell shock, then in WWII 

it was battle fatigue, fast forward 

to the Korean War and they 

changed it yet again to operational 

exhaustion, then finally being 

coined as PTSD or post-traumatic 

stress disorder during the Vietnam 

War era. 

But wait, how about are police 

officers? Well back then, “PTSD” 

was only thought of as a disorder 

that effected returning veteran. 

What gets me is with some of 

the smartest and greatest minds 

in this world, we were able to 

land men on the moon, descend 

to the deepest parts of the ocean, 

almost completely eradicate polio 

off the face of the earth and 

invent a butter that tastes “just 

like butter”, but no one said hey, 

if this “PTSD” thing is affecting our 

veterans, maybe we should investigate 

on how it may be affecting 

our law enforcement officers. 

We can go back to the very 

beginning of law enforcement. 

To the days where the term posttraumatic 

stress did not even 

exist! So, when did we begin to 

learn about PTSD? 

Law enforcement has been in 

existence since the mid- 1800s, 

Long before WWI and the term 

Shell Shocked. Which makes me 

wonder why it has taken over 100 

years to just begin to recognize 

the traumatic effects of police 

work. Trauma scenes are nothing 

new to policing, Homicides, rapes, 

domestic violence and more have 

been a part of the law enforcement 

culture since day one. 

Well, we called PTSD names 

too, we call it burn-out, old timer 

syndrome, cynical, hair-bag…. I 

can go on and on. Each department 

has their own slang word 

for it, but what it comes down 

by calling it any other name then 

what it truly is, places a stigma 

onto the individual who is battling 

these stresses. These terms, just 

like the military ones have caused 

officers to become fearful of 

showing their true pain. 

So, with all the name changes, 

does society even taken this issue 

seriously? Were people really 

paying any attention? Or were 

they just looking at this as a catch 

phrase to hide the real issue of 

how damaged our soldiers coming 

back really were? When we 

use the term PTSD in a matter-offact 

kind of way, and we do it, a 

lot, we minimalize the severity of 

this mental health condition the 

effects our first responders and 

veterans. 

We have seen just in New York 

alone three different commissions 

dating back to the early 70s 

to battle corruption. So why has 

it taken so long for the mental 

health issues of our officers to be 

viewed as systemic injury across 

the nation? 

If you are a receptionist that 

opens company mail, papercuts 

are routine. How about a brick 

layer, bad back? Or stenographer, 

carpal tunnel? So, PTSD or whatever 

you choose to call it is just 

part of workplace injuries that 

occur during your career. 

A typical shift can result in a 

multitude of visual, verbal, and 

physical trauma, sometimes happening 

back-to-back with little or 

no downtime. Our officers cannot 

just call for a timeout or say I need 

a safe space with some hot cocoa. 

Can you imagine what would be 

said? Safe spaces and time outs 

are only for the corporate snowflakes 

whose latte or tuna melt 

delivery was wrong or if the copier 

was out of ink. Someone please, 

someone get me a valium and a 

glass of wine... puke!!! 

Safe spaces, stuffed animals, 

time-outs, and hot cocoa does not 

exist in the world of law enforcement, 

however, maybe it should? 

Now I am not saying that an officer 

needs to curl up in a fetal position 

with a fuzzy teddy bear in some 

neutral color friendly room with 

soft music. Although that might 

be nice, it is unrealistic. All I am 

saying is, our officers need to decompress 

and process the traumas 

they encounter during a shift. We 

all know the term stacked trauma, 

it real! Science says so, and yet 

we keep piling on incident after 

incident as if they will not come 

toppling down one day. 

That is the reality of the mental 

health stigma that plaques are 

nations front line heroes. 

As more departments begin to 

implement peer support groups, 

the importance of these groups is 

to help our traumatized officers, 

but it makes me really wonder. 

Is this a dog and pony show by 

departments just trying to cover 

their ass or are they really putting 

the time, effort, and money into a 

mental health plan? 

John and Sam host MAD (Making 

a Difference) Radio each Wednesday 

7pm central live on FB @Makingadifferencetx. 

For more about 

Sam visit SamanthaHorwitz.com 


or ABadgeofHonor.com 

Remember back in the day, when the BLUES published 

it’s “Rookie Review” each month? 

Well due to popular request it’s back. And this time you 

can send photos as well. 

Just email us your ‘rookie’s’ status to: bluespdmag@ 

gmail.com or you can click on this link and it will create a 

rookie notice and send it directly to dispatch. 

And congrats to all our new FTOs ... we know you aren’t 

getting any sleep. 

EDITOR: Surely someone out there had a baby in the 

last couple of months. We’re waiting to hear all about it. 

full page realty ad 

Congratulations to 

Alan Helfman 

on your 

Lifetime 

Achievement Award 

PROUD SUPPORTER OF THE BLUES 

FOR OVER 36 YEARS 

HELFMAN’S 

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WINNER: RACE-BAITING MASS MEDIA 

Media’s ‘rush to motive’ after mass shootings is exploitation at its worst. 

BY JOE CONCHA, THE HILL 

We’ve all heard of the term 

“rush to judgement” when it 

comes to deciding guilt or innocence. 

But lately, there’s been another 

kind of rush being committed by 

more than a few members of the 

media: a rush to motive. 

Exhibit A appeared almost 

immediately following the 

shootings at three metro Atlanta 

spas, allegedly carried out by 

21-year-old Robert Long. Eight 

people died, including six Asian 

Americans. 

On cue, the rush to motive 

began despite law enforcement 

saying there was no evidence – 

at least as of now – that Long 

harbored anti-Asian bigotry. 

The shooter also reportedly told 

authorities that he did not select 

his targets based on their race, 

telling investigators that he had 

a “sexual addiction” and executed 

the killings to eliminate his 

“temptation” to pay for sex. 

In other words, this appears to 

be a sex addiction issue — for 

which Long’s roommates say his 

was in rehab. Something similar 

happened five years ago at 

the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, 

when a shooter took his rage out 

on what he saw as the centrality 

of his temptation. 

“He made indicators that he 

has some issues, potentially 

sexual addiction, and may have 

frequented some of these places 

in the past,” Cherokee County 

(Ga.) Chief Frank Reynolds told 

reporters recently. “We believe 

that he frequented these places 

in the past and may have been 

lashing out.” 

No matter. Some in the media 

looking to exploit fear for ratings 

or to push an ideological agenda 

had already decided without evidence 

that these shootings were 

racially motivated and should 

be called a hate crime. Even 

late-night “comedy” hosts who 

morphed in politically obsessed 

cable news pundits in the Trump 

era felt compelled to weigh in 

by lying about what Long told 

authorities. 

“The Atlanta shooter blamed 

a specific race of people for his 

problems, and then murdered 

them because of it. If that’s not 

racism, then the word has no 

meaning,” Comedy Central host 

Trevor Noah declared. 

Ah, but that’s just a comic, 

right? Pay him no mind. 

But just one tweet with video 

of Noah’s comments was viewed 

by more than 1.2 million people 

online, including more than 

15,000 retweets and 45,000 likes. 

Hundreds of thousands also 

tuned into “The Daily Show” that 

night. 

The farce becomes fact in 

many of Noah’s audience members’ 

minds, because, according 

to what is publicly known, at no 

point did Long ever blame a specific 

race for his problems. 

Given the temperature of the 

country, this is a dangerous 

game being played by some 

people with a national stage. It 

exploits fear. It pours kerosene 

on it. 

“Follow the facts” has been replaced 

by “follow your feelings” 

— or make things up whole cloth 

to push a narrative. 

Traditional media also rushed 

to motive, most notably the 

Washington Post, which ran 

(checks notes) 16 stories using a 

hate crime angle, while the New 

York Times ran nine under the 

same unproven narrative. The 

White House also jumped in as 

well, with Press Secretary Jen 

Psaki pointing the finger at Donald 

Trump. 

“There’s no question some of 

the damaging rhetoric we saw 

during the prior administration 

… has elevated threats against 

Asian-Americans,” Psaki argued 

in pushing a motive that has yet 

to materialize. 

And we’ve seen this movie before 

— most notably with African 

American actor Jussie Smollett, 

who claimed he was the victim 

of a hate crime in 2019 after 

being attacked by two MAGA-hat 

wearing men who happened to 

be out at 2:00 am during a polar 

vortex with a noose handy. 

Almost no one – except for 

local Chicago media – was 

skeptical of such a highly unlikely 

story. Many in the media 

and many Democratic politicians, 

most notably then-Sen. Kamala 

Harris (D-Calif.), automatically 

believed Smollett. 

Of course, the story quickly fell 

apart. No one who treated Smollett’s 

hoax as absolute fact apologized 

or faced accountability. 

And here we are again, with 

some family members of the 

Atlanta victims pleading with 

the media not to make this about 

race. Those pleas are being ignored. 

An investigation into the killing 

of eight people in Atlanta continues 

as you read this. A trial 

will commence in the coming 

months. Those two actions exist 

for a reason: To get to the truth. 

Too bad investigative journalism 

seems to be an antiquated model, 

replaced by a rush to motive 

through the perpetual prism of 

race. 

A 2020 Gallup poll showed 

that 83 percent of Americans 

believe the media bears most 

of the blame for division in this 

country. If looking for a reason 

why in a nutshell, put the Atlanta 

shootings and the coverage it 

has generated immediately near 

the top of the list. 

Joe Concha is a media and politics 

columnist for The Hill. 


Legal Advocacy and 

Officer Mental Health 

By Tina Jaeckle & 

Lance LoRusso 

I have had the blessing to work 

with countless officers and 

their families following various 

types of critical incidents in the 

line of duty, including officer 

involved shootings and use of 

force situations. Although not all 

result in injury or death, lives are 

undoubtedly changed in difficult 

and overwhelming ways. Many 

variables impact the way an officer 

manages the highly stressful 

consequences of a split-second 

decision, which is frequently 

twisted under the microscope of 

a media platform that thrives on 

manipulating a false narrative 

in our society. Private lives of 

all involved then become game 

for a very public discourse on 

how police “consistently abuse 

their power” which, of course, 

is simply not factual. Thousands 

of great officers in our country 

serve heroically every day and 

honor their dedication to others 

but this does not often make 

the sensational headlines. Valid 

statistical research on police and 

use of force does indeed exist 

but we live in a world in which 

it is far easier to make quick and 

incorrect assumptions than to 

analyze the information critically. 

Some officers have shared with 

me their sense of betrayal and 

loneliness when their own leadership 

has not supported them 

in the days following a use of 

force incident despite the validation 

that policy was not violated 

after an in-depth investigation. 

It is one thing to be criticized by 

the community as officers have 

come to expect, it is quite another 

to feel that those who should 

“have your back” actually do not. 

This story is becoming common 

as more officers are now at the 

center of civil and criminal cases 

and feel completely lost in the 

mountain of allegations made by 

attorneys representing the “suspect” 

involved in the incident. 

Often the actual truth is lost 

in translation. For a LEO facing 

these types of challenges, enlisting 

the assistance of an effective 

legal advocate is imperative in 

providing ongoing support that 

can positively impact the officer’s 

overall mental health. In 

other words, having a pro-law 

enforcement attorney in their 

corner can provide hope during 

some of the darkest hours. I have 

observed this firsthand through 

the wonderful work and mission 

of well-known attorney 

Lance LoRusso and his expert 

representation of countless law 

DR. TINA JAECKLE 

enforcement officers over the 

years. I asked Lance to join me 

as a co-author for this article so 

he could offer his own insight 

and experience on how effective 

legal advocacy can actually improve 

officer mental health. 

Advocacy begins long before 

the law enforcement officer 

client signs a contract with her 

attorney. Use of force cases are 

different than an allegation of 

murder, assault, or battery. The 

analysis and defense of such 

cases must begin with a recognition 

that the officer and 

the subject never would have 

met but for the employment of 

the officer that brought them 

together. Unfortunately, many 

attorneys start the defense of an 

officer using the lens of a reasonable 

person faced with the 

threat or potential threat which 

puts the officer’s motives under 

the microscope in direct contravention 

of United States Supreme 

Court precedent. 

In ¬Graham v. Connor, Justice 

Rehnquist articulated the opinion 

of the court stating: 

The Fourth Amendment “reasonableness” 

inquiry is whether 

the officers’ actions are “objectively 

reasonable” in light of the 

facts and circumstances confronting 

them, without regard to 

their underlying intent or motivation. 

The Graham court went on 

stating: 

An officer’s evil intentions will 

not make a Fourth Amendment 

violation out of an objectively 

reasonable use of force; nor will 

an officer’s good intentions make 

an objectively unreasonable use 

of force constitutional. 

Therefore, the social media 

posts of the officer, their comments 

before and after the 

encounter, and their personal life 

outside of law enforcement are 

not relevant to any analysis of 

their actions. 

This seemingly small portion 

of this critically important case 

makes it clear that every use of 

force must be examined based 

solely upon the specific set of 

facts facing the officer when the 

use of force took place. Often 

buried in this analysis is the 

conduct of the person involved 

in the interaction with the officer 

to the point that any effort 

to analyze or even mention such 

facts is met with an avalanche of 

baseless allegations. As Justice 

Rehnquist went on to explain, 

The “reasonableness” of a 

particular use of force must be 

judged from the perspective of a 

reasonable officer on the scene, 

and its calculus must embody an 

allowance for the fact that police 

officers are often forced to make 

split-second decisions about the 

amount of force necessary in a 

particular situation. 

. . . 

With respect to a claim of excessive 

force, the same standard 

of reasonableness at the moment 

applies: “Not every push or 

shove, even if it may later seem 

unnecessary in the peace of a 

judge’s chambers,” violates the 

Fourth Amendment. The calculus 

of reasonableness must embody 

allowance for the fact that police 

officers are often forced to 

make split-second judgments— 

in circumstances that are tense, 

uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about 

the amount of force 

that is necessary in a particular 

situation. 

This is why any attorney representing 

officers must understand 

that officers will use force 

in some situations, and if they 

fail to do so when required, 

the officer and citizens will be 

injured. Couple this fact with an 

acknowledgement that lawful 

force will never look good on 

video, and you have the beginnings 

of a law enforcement 

advocate. 

When an agency is under the 

microscope due to the actions 

of an officer, it is nonsensical 

to immediately terminate the 

officer as any opportunity to 

discover deficiencies in selection, 

hiring, training, supervising, 

and retention at the agency. In 

most cases, the agency hired this 

person to the exclusion of many 

other candidates. They must 

begin their administrative investigations 

with any eye toward 

determining first if the agency 

failed its mission to the public 

and not whether thirty seconds 

of video justify appeasing the 

masses with a termination. 

I’ve represented over 110 officers 

involved in shootings and 

critical incidents. The effects 

of an agency failing to support 

the officer To in the hours and days 

following the use of force is 

devastating and often irreversible. 

For the officer, who looked 

to the agency as a recruit for 

guidance, knowledge, and mentoring, 

abandonment is a wound 

through the heart that never 

heals. Often, they end up standing 

alone save for their family, 

a few loyal friends, and their 

advocate who holds their career, 

their well-being, and increasingly 

their freedom in her hands. 

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A new HPD chapter begins with Chief Finner; 

meanwhile in Austin, we have battles to fight 

It has been a very busy couple 

of weeks here at the HPOU. We, 

like most of you, were surprised 

at the announcement that Chief 

Acevedo was taking the chiefs job 

in Miami. 

With the quick announcement 

came a lot of questions and speculation. 

I have spoken with Chief 

Acevedo and he told me that this 

was a move that he did not expect, 

but after being offered the 

job and speaking with his wife 

felt that it would be good for the 

family. 

I want to thank Chief Acevedo 

for his dedication to the City of 

Houston and its citizens. I know 

we did not always agree on issues 

or decisions, but I have a lot of 

respect for him as an individual 

and how he was never afraid to 

address tough issues. 

Now for the next chapter of the 

Houston Police Department under 

our new chief, Troy Finner. 

I first met Chief Finner about 12 

years ago while working on the 

Administrative Discipline Committee. 

He was a great advocate for 

working officers back then and I 

am sure he will continue to be. 

I look forward to working with 

Chief Finner and know that he has 

a passion for this department and 

the community. 

The Austin Battleground 

On another note, there are several 

battles right now in Austin 

and much of the conflict revolves 

around police reform. Sadly, most 

of the people in the battles do not 

understand qualified immunity. 

But that is not stopping them from 

attacking it and trying to strip our 

rights away. 

There are seven separate reform 

bills dealing with removing qualified 

immunity for our officers. The 

one with the most traction is the 

George Floyd Act, HB 88, which 

has several different components 

that would have tragic effects on 

law enforcement. Other areas of 

concern in this bill include removing 

all arrests for Class C offenses, 

changing the reasonableness 

standard for use of force, further 

restricting deadly force, duty 

to respond, and a host of other 

changes to 143. 

We registered our opposition to 

this bill and are working with the 

Texas Municipal Police Association, 

the Dallas Police Association 

and several others to battle these 

reform bills. I am confident that at 

the end of the session, the members 

of the HPOU will still have 

qualified immunity! 

In the Legislature we also opposed 

the firefighters’ bill which 

would allow for an independent 

arbitrator to determine benefits 

for Houston firefighters after 61 

days of being unable to reach an 

agreement on a contract. 

As most of you know, Houston 

Fire Local 341 has turned down 

four percent under Mayor Parker, 

9.5 percent and 13.5 percent and 

a mediated offer of $307 million 

under Mayor Turner, the last three 

without even a vote of the membership. 

We know that these offers were 

DOUGLAS GRIFFITH 

real as we were in the room for 

the $307 million offer. These 

rejections were all in an attempt 

to get Proposition B, which would 

give them the same pay as police 

officers without giving anything 

up as we have over the years. 

Many will say this is not our 

fight, but I disagree. We did not 

want to be involved in this battle 

but Local 341 pulled us in because 

of their inability get collective 

bargaining. Now I will do whatever 

needs to be done to protect our 

bargaining rights and the future of 

our department. 

Should Prop B pass, or an arbitrator 

give firefighters a 20 percent 

raise, then we would have to close 

the Academy, and more than likely 

see a force reduction (layoffs). 

We are operating with 300 fewer 

officers than HPD had in 1998, 

but I am sure that Local 341 would 

not care what happens to our 

members. 

But I do! That’s why we’re fighting 

this battle and the Floyd battle 

for you in Austin! 


unning 4 heroes 

Zechariah 

Cartledge: 

a True American Hero 

Zechariah’s 2021 Run Tracker and Sponsors: 

Total Miles Run in 2021: (as of 3/31/21): 91 

Total Miles Run in 2020: 401 

Total Miles Run in 2019: 376 

Overall Miles Run: 868 

2021 Run Stats: 

Total Miles Run for 2021 fallen LEO’s (Non COVID-19): 39 

Total Miles Run for 2021 fallen Firefighters (Non COVID-19): 15 

Total Miles Run for 2021 fallen COVID-19 Heroes: 6 

Total Miles Run for 2021 Non Line of Duty Deaths: 0 

Total Miles Run for 2020 Fallen LEO’s: 23 

Total Miles Run for 2020 Fallen Firefighters: 6 

Total Miles Run for 2020/2021 Fallen K9’s: 0 

Total Tribute Runs by State for 2021: 2 

- - - - - - - - - - 

States Zechariah has run in: Florida, New York, Georgia, South Carolina 

(3), Pennsylvania, Illinois (3), Texas (5), Kentucky, Arkansas, Nevada, 

California, Arizona, North Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware 

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unning 4 heroes 

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emembering my hero ... 

 

Concerns of Police Survivors is an organization whose mission is to help rebuild the 

shattered lives of those family members and co-workers of law enforcement officers 

that are killed in the line of duty. Austin Gryder walks in the same footsteps as his 

mother and father as a police officer at HPD. 

When I was younger my dad 

would help me practice for 

baseball before work, after 

work, on his off days and any 

chance he would get. We went 

to tournaments together and 

some of the best memories were 

made in hotel rooms miles away 

from home. 

Unfortunately, 9 days after my 

13th birthday, my father paid the 

ultimate sacrifice. 

On June 29th, 2008 my father, 

Gary Allen Gryder, was working 

an overtime program off the Katy 

Freeway and Hwy 6. A driver 

drove through the construction 

barricades injuring another HPD 

Officer and ultimately killing my 

father. 

The day my father was killed 

I had a baseball game planned 

for that evening. Instead of not 

playing and feeling emotionally 

distraught, I knew my father 

would not want me feeling like 

that at all. I decided to still play 

baseball that night and pitch the 

game. 

One of my best and worst 

memories was seeing the stands 

of the baseball field filled with 

blue uniforms (everyone knew 

the Houston Police Department 

by their baby blues). To this day 

I still can’t remember much of 

that day, due to the things I was 

dealt with but that is one memory 

that will stay 

with me forever. 

Officers whom I 

didn’t even know, 

still took the 

time to support 

a blue family in 

need. That I will 

always cherish. 

The years 

after my father 

passed, my 

mother and I still 

went through 

everyday life, 

trying not to 

think about the 

negative things 

but you know 

those things 

can just never 

go away. What 

kept us going 

is just knowing 

that my father 

would never want us to be sad 

about anything and what life 

could we live if we were sad and 

depressed all the time. 

We always felt blessed in life 

with things we were able to see 

and do. When my father passed, 

we didn’t stop doing these 

things. Even with a few bumps 

in the road, I finally graduated 

from Sam Houston State University 

with a bachelor’s degree 

in criminal justice. And then in 

June of 2019, 11 years following 

my father’s passing, I decided to 

embark on my own journey as 

a cadet with the Houston Police 

Department. 

December 5th, 2019 I was officially 

sworn in as an Officer with 

the Houston Police Department. 

To say the least, it was bittersweet. 

I knew all the hard work I 

did had finally paid off. I could finally 

walk in the same footsteps 

my father did. 

Today I am still on the Department 

and on patrol at the Northwest 

Substation. In June of this 

year, it will be two years since 

that first day I started the Police 

Academy as a Cadet. 

I love what I do each and every 

day. However, the most rewarding 

part is knowing that any 

family that needs someone to 

talk to who has lost someone 

important to them in the line of 

duty, I can be that person to help 

them through it because I unfortunately 

know firsthand what it 

is like. 

I can’t wait to see where this 

career path takes my family and I 

in the future. I can say for a fact, 

this is the best job in the world. 


Officer 

Jesse Madsen 

Tampa Police Department, Florida 

End of Watch Tuesday, March 9, 2021 

Age 45 Tour 16 Years Badge #507 

Police Officer 

Gary Hibbs 

Chicago Heights Police Department, Illinois 

End of Watch Friday, March 12, 2021 

Age N/A Tour 25 Years Badge #102 

Police Officer Jesse Madsen was killed when his patrol car was struck 

head-on by a wrong-way driver on I-275, near Hillsborough Avenue, just 

before 1:00 am. 

He was responding to reports of a vehicle driving in the wrong direction 

when he was struck by the car. Officer Madsen and the other driver were 

both killed in the impact. 

Officer Madsen had served with the Tampa Police Department for 16 

years. He is survived by his wife and three children. 

Police Officer Gary Hibbs suffered a fatal heart attack while attempting to 

arrest a subject at an apartment on 14th Place. He and other officers had 

responded to the apartment on March 4th, 2021, to investigate a domestic 

violence call. During the investigation, he attempted to place a subject under 

arrest, but the man resisted and began fighting with him. Officer Hibbs collapsed 

during the struggle. 

Officer Hibbs was transported to Franciscan Hospital where he remained until 

passing away on March 12th, 2021. Officer Hibbs had served with the Chicago 

Heights Police Department for 25 years. His son also serves as a police officer 

with the agency. 

Border Patrol Agent 

Alejandro Flores-Bañuelos 

United States Border Patrol, U.S. Government 

End of Watch Monday, March 15, 2021 

Age 35 Tour 12 Years Badge I-203 

Border Patrol Agent Alejandro Flores-Bañuelos was struck and killed by a 

vehicle on Highway 86, north of Marina Drive, near Salton City, California. 

He was the first to arrive at the scene of a vehicle crash that occurred 

during a dust storm that caused low visibility. He was assisting an elderly 

patient who was still in her car when another vehicle struck him and the 

car. 

Agent Flores-Bañuelos was transported to Pioneers Memorial Hospital 

where he succumbed to his injuries. 

Agent Flores-Bañuelos was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and had served 

with the United States Border Patrol for 12 years. He is survived by his 

expectant wife and three children. 


Kevin Valencia 

Orlando Police Department, Florida 


Age N/A Tour 3 Years 

Badge # N/A 

Police Officer Kevin Valencia succumbed to complications of gunshot 

wounds sustained on June 11th, 2018, while responding to a domestic 

disturbance at 4932 Eaglesmere Drive. A convicted felon who was 

on probation for arson was holding his two children and his girlfriend’s 

two children in the apartment. The man’s girlfriend had called the police 

following an argument in which the man assaulted her. Officer Valencia 

was attempting to gain entry into the apartment to retrieve the children 

when the man fired through the front door, striking him in the head. 

Officer Valencia had served with the Orlando Police Department for three 

years. He is survived by his wife and two children. 



Eric Talley 

Boulder Police Department, Colorado 


Age 51 Tour 11 Years Badge N/A 

Correctional Officer 

Robert McFarland 

Iowa Department of Corrections, Iowa 

End of Watch Tuesday, March 23, 2021 

Age 46 Tour 13 Years Badge # N/A 

Police Officer Eric Talley was shot and killed at about 2:30 pm while responding 

to an active shooter incident at the King Sooper grocery store 

at 3600 Table Mesa Drive. Officer Talley was the first officer to arrive at 

the scene and was shot as he engaged the gunman. The subject was taken 

into custody a short time later after being wounded. The subject murdered 

a total of 10 people, including Officer Talley, during the incident. 

Officer Talley had served with the Boulder Police Department for 11 

years. He is survived by his wife, seven children, and parents. 

Correctional Officer Robert McFarland and Nurse Lorena Schulte were 

assaulted and beaten to death by two inmates in the Anamosa State 

Penitentiary infirmary during an escape attempt. The inmates had developed 

a ruse to gain access to the infirmary by claiming to be there 

as part of the prison repair program. Once inside they attacked Officer 

McFarland and Nurse Schulte with hammers, inflicting fatal skull fractures 

on both. Another inmate inside the infirmary attempted to protect 

Officer McFarland and Nurse Schulte but was also attacked and suffered 

a skull fracture. 

Officer McFarland had served with the Iowa Department of Corrections 

for 13 years and also served with the Ely Volunteer Fire Department. 

Senior Master Trooper 

Todd A. Hanneken 

Illinois State Police, Illinois 

End of Watch Thursday, March 25, 2021 

Age 45 Tour N/A Badge #5213 

Senior Master Trooper Todd Hanneken was killed in a single-vehicle crash 

on Illinois 10 near County Road 600 E in Bondville. 

His vehicle left the roadway before striking a utility pole and tree at 

about 10:45 am. 

Trooper Hanneken is survived by his wife, two sons, parents, and brother. 

His father also served with the Illinois State Police. 

Corporal 

Kyle Jeffrey Davis 

Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Oklahoma 

End of Watch Thursday, March 25, 2021 

Age 38 Tour 13 Years 

Badge S25 

Corporal Kyle Davis died after being assaulted inside of the Washington 

County Correctional Facility while booking a prisoner. Seventeen subjects 

had been arrested as part of a large multiagency narcotics investigation 

and were being booked into the jail. One of the men began to struggle with 

officers while being booked and struck Corporal Davis in the chest, causing 

him to suffer a ruptured aorta. He was transported to a local hospital 

where he passed away approximately one hour later. 

Corporal Davis had served with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office for 

13 years. He is survived by his wife and two children. 


Trooper 

Joseph Gallagher 

New York State Police, New York 

End of Watch Friday, March 26, 2021 


Trooper Joseph Gallagher succumbed to injuries sustained on December 

18th, 2017, when he was struck by a vehicle. Trooper Gallagher was 

assisting a motorist on the westbound Long Island Expressway at the 

entrance ramp to the Sagtikos Parkway when he was struck by a passing 

motorist who was distracted by three texting conversations. Trooper 

Gallagher was seriously injured and died three years later from his injuries. 

Trooper Gallagher served with the New York State Police for seven years. 

He is survived by his wife and two children. 

Reserve Deputy Sheriff 

James Driver 

Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, Indiana 


Age 38 Tour 2 Years Badge # 5349 

Reserve Deputy Sheriff James Driver was killed in a vehicle crash near 

the intersection of West State Road 45 and West Eller Road while 

responding to an accident with injury. An oncoming vehicle pulling a trailer 

attempted to stop, but the driver lost control. The vehicle’s trailer struck 

Deputy Driver’s patrol car, which rolled over. Deputy Driver was ejected 

from the vehicle and suffered fatal injuries. 

Deputy Driver had served with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office for two 

years. He is survived by his wife, daughter, and two stepchildren. 

Trooper 

Chad Walker 

Texas Department of Public Safety - Highway Patrol 

End of Watch Wednesday, March 31, 2021 


Trooper Chad Walker succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained five days 

earlier when he was ambushed while stopping to assist what he believed 

was a disabled vehicle near Mexia, As he pulled behind the vehicle, the driver 

exited and opened fire with a handgun, shooting through the windshield 

of the patrol car before it had come to a full stop. Trooper Walker was 

struck in the head and abdomen. The driver fled into a wooded area and remained 

at large until committing suicide the following day. Trooper Walker 

was transported to a local hospital where it was determined he could not 

survive his wounds. He was kept on life support until March 31st, 2021, 

when his organs were donated. 


William Evans 

United States Capitol Police, U.S. Government 

End of Watch Friday, April 2, 2021 

Age N/A Tour 18 Years Badge # N/A 

Police Officer Billy Evans was struck and killed by a vehicle whose driver 

was attempting to breach a barricade at the United States Capitol. 

Officer Evans and other officers were stationed outside of the north vehicle 

access point along Constitution Avenue when the driver intentionally 

drove into Officer Evans and a second officer. The driver then exited the 

car after crashing into a retractable barricade and attempted to attack 

other officers with a knife. The man was shot and killed at the scene. 

Trooper Walker had served with the Texas Highway Patrol for six years 

Officer Evans was transported to a nearby hospital in a patrol car but 

and had 18 years of law enforcement experience. He had previously 

died a short time later. 

served with the Groesbeck Police Department, Athens Police Department, 

Henderson County Sheriff’s Office, and Limestone County Sheriff’s 

Officer Evans had served with the United States Capitol Police for 18 

Office. He is survived by his wife, 15-year-old son, twin 7-year-old daughters, 

and a two-month-old daughter. 

86 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE years. 

87

Telecomunicator Officer 

Rowena Speight 

Leander Police Department 

Corporal 

Michael Leonard Schulze 

Texas DPS 

We are deeply saddened to announce the tragic loss of one of our own, 

Telecommunications Officer Rowena Speight. Yesterday was one of the 

hardest days for our department as we investigated an early morning 

domestic violence incident that resulted in the death of one of our own. 

Rowena has served in the Leander Police Department as a Telecommunicator 

since 2016, and she will always be remembered for her bold 

spirit, her love of the Lord, and her passion to serve others. Rowena will 

be sincerely missed, because her smile was infectious and her company 

always welcome. We want to thank the Leander community and all 

of our partner agencies for their support as we navigate through this 

difficult process. 

Corporal Michael Leonard Schulze, passed away Monday, March 29, 

2021. Corporal Schulze graduated “A-94”, serving the citizens of 

Texas and the Department for over 27 years. He was stationed in El 

Capitan located in the Guadalupe Mountains. A celebration of Corporal 

Schulze’s life will be held at the Van Horn High School Auditorium 

located at 200 W. 7th St., Van Horn, TX on Thursday, April 8, 2021 

at 11:00 am. In lieu of flowers, the family request that donations be 

made in Corporal Schulze’s memory to: Dell City Independent School 

District, 110 N. Main St, Dell City, TX 79837 or the Mike Schulze 

endowment at Sam Houston State University, 1905 University Ave, 

Huntsville, TX 77340. 

Sergeant 

Marcus Sam 

Harris County Constable Pct. 4 

YOU MAY BE GONE, BUT WILL ALWAYS BE IN OUR HEARTS 

It is with a heavy heart that we must inform all of you that we have lost 

one of our own. Sergeant Marcus Sam passed away after being involved 

in a one vehicle car accident last night. Precinct 4 Deputies escorted 

Sergeant Sam from the hospital to the Medical Examiner’s office. The 

Houston Police department worked the accident scene and the accident 

is currently under investigation. We have been in contact with 

Marcus’ family and will do everything we can to see them through this 

tragedy. Asking for prayers for his family and friends. 

Constable Mark Herman 

Detective 

K.C. Robinson 

Celina Police Department 

CELINA, Texas - A small but growing community is mourning the 

death of a police officer and his daughter in a traffic accident. 

Celina Mayor Sean Terry said his tight-knit community and their 

hearts are broken over the death of Det. K.C. Robinson. He died 

Monday April 5th in a crash in Whitesboro, in Grayson County on 

the Texas-Oklahoma border. The 33-year-old officer was off duty 

and with his family at the time. Their vehicle was hit after a dump 

truck hit another car, causing a chain-reaction crash. Robinson 

and his 6-year-old daughter, Brynlee, died at the scene. His wife 

was flown to the hospital in critical condition.He is being described 

as a man dedicated to his family and community. 

“We lost a brother of the police department. We lost a father. We 

lost his daughter. Mom lost her daughter and her husband. And 

so right now it’s just about keeping the faith,” Mayor Terry said. 

Robinson served the Celina Police Department for three and a 

half years. Interim Police Chief Allwin Barrow said he had recently 

been promoted to the detective. 


Some folks will say “One man, can’t make a difference...” Others might 

say “Nothing a man does, really ever changes anything...”. 

I would quietly refer to you, your life and your heart as a point which 

counters such notions. Truth be told, I’d really not even have to speak. For 

your Integrity, Ethics and, your tireless Compassion for others, spoke volumes 

more than any words I say, ever could. 

Many a lonely mile will a Texas Trooper cover, in their career. Some of 

those miles will be mighty tough. Filled with senseless tragedy, heartache 

and loss. Other days will be spent with piles and piles of paperwork. 

Enough paper in fact, you’d oftentimes wonder, if there’s any paper left, 

anywhere else in the entire State of Texas. 

Ah but then there’ll be that very rare, special day that comes. The one 

whereby you get the opportunity to do something really cool for someone 

else. 

Maybe you’ll give a kid some hope, for their future. Perhaps you’ll help 

someone safely continue their travels, after changing their tire. Who 

knows, you might even safe someone’s life. 

A man, his life, his legacy can be measured in many ways. Troopers, can 

be as well, you know? For example, contacts, crashes worked, DWI’s filed, 

criminal cases, times he or she has been caught without their hat on and 

l, the list goes on. 

Today, the State of Texas and her beloved Department of Public Safety, 

lays to rest one of our best and brightest sons. A man who not only embodied 

all the best characteristics of what it means to be a Trooper but, 

what it means to be, one good man. 

The kind of man who, made a difference. The kind of man who demonstrated 

daily, what it meant to be a good son, husband, father and friend. 

Trooper Chad Walker was all these things and, so much more. Chad 

gave his life, so that others might live. In fact, he lived his life in that very 

way. Daily, the man rose up, even when exhausted and, he gave of himself, 

whatever he had left. And then, he somehow found more to give. 

I personally figure, from this day forward when some people say no one 

man can make a difference, we could all show them otherwise. For all 

we’d have to do is point to the life of, Chad Walker. 

Though tragic and bitter was the loss of Chad’s life, perhaps more importantly 

to be remembered is, was how the man lived. In my mind, in my 

heart, the man lived like I hope one day, I could have the strength to live. 

To steadfastly, often quietly and still with a smile upon my face, embody 

the very timeless Core Values of the world famous, Texas Department of 

Public Safety.... 

Courtesy. Service. Protection. 

Rest easy, Brother. Though we’re heartbroken you’re gone, you can rest 

assured that you’ll never, ever be forgotten. “Thank you” just doesn’t seem 

to cover it... 

REST EASY MY 

BROTHER 

Remembering 

DPS Trooper Chad Walker 



Spring Scrambles 

My friends know that golf is 

not my usual go-to outdoor 

sport, but springtime always 

brings out the golfer in me. I do 

have great memories from my 

time on the golf course with my 

dad, my brothers, and my kids. 

I also have negotiated many of 

a business deals on the course 

to be finalized at the clubhouse. 

Springtime is when many charity 

golf tournaments bring together 

friends, strangers, co-workers, 

and competitors; all coming together 

to donate money to some 

great causes that otherwise 

would not be able to thrive without 

their much-needed financial 

support. 

I recently was invited to Black 

Hawk Golf and Country Club 

to play in Landmark Charities 

annual 

golf tournament. 

If 

you live in 

Houston or 

even Texas 

for that 

matter, you 

probably 

have done 

business 

with 

Landmark 

Industries 

through 

one of 

their 240 

Timewise 

Convenience 

Stores scattered across 

Houston, San Antonio, Austin, 

and Laredo. It is through these 

stores and events like their charity 

tournament that they have 

raised and donated over One 

Million dollars to great organizations 

like The Westview School, 

The University of Texas Medical 

School, the Children’s Miracle 

Network and the Muscular Dystrophy 

Association. 

So, what golf advice can a 

hacker like me possibly give to 

anyone? Well actually, I reflected 

on this recent game and 

would offer the following tips. 

One, on a windy day, all shots 

directly into the wind call for 

2 clubs more than you think…I 

learned this the hard way, over 

and over again. When I finally 

tried it, I became a believer. 

Two, don’t leave your putts 

short. Only twice did I miss my 

putts long, especially now during 

COVID with 

the “leave 

the pin in” 

rule I should 

have driven 

it to use the 

pin like a 

backboard 

in March 

Madness. 

Third and 

Final, 

scramble 

formats are 

your friend, 

especially 

with your 

friends. I 

only play 

10-12 times per year, so I rarely 

leave a course and talk about my 

score. So how did I play on this 

occasion? Well, while during 

this scramble I didn’t have the 

best game of my life, I did have 

some of the best shots of my life. 

I carried the team on a long par 

three where I got closest to the 

pin and then dropped the putt 

for a team birdie. I also dropped 

several more putts later for team 

birdies. Overall, my short game 

and my putting was as good as 

anyone on the team, despite my 

drives rarely coming close to 

our team’s longest or straightest 

drives. That is the beauty of this 

format…friends remain friends 

and even a hacker can feel like a 

pro with one great shot. 

My last parting shot is to 

encourage all of you to get out 

this month and play some golf 

with friends or family. Don’t 

worry about how good you are, 

don’t expect perfection, and just 

have fun. Even better if your 

foursome can pay to play in one 

of the area’s many charity golf 

tournaments happening this 

month. If you don’t know where 

to look, just ask around at work, 

church, or your local golf clubs. 

And if you are not a great golfer, 

then play a scramble format, and 

forget all of those lousy shots 

where your divots travel further 

than your ball but remember the 

one of two great shots that will 

keep bringing you back time and 

time again. 


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ADS BACK IN THE DAY 



McCulloch Co. Sheriff’s Office Get Info Peace Officer 04/15/2021 - 5pm 

Friendswood Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/26/2021 - 5pm 

Clute Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/26/2021 - 5pm 

Somerville Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/26/2021 - 5pm 

Mustang Ridge Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/24/2021 - 5pm 

Hearne Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/01/2021 - 5pm 

Town of Trophy Club Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/26/2021 - 5pm 

San Felipe Del Rio CISD Get Info Chief of Police 05/21/2021 - 5pm 

Ingram Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/25/2021 - 5pm 

The Southwestern Baptist Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/30/2021 - 5pm 

Ochiltree County Sheriff’s Office Get Info Peace Officer 04/16/2021 - 5pm 

Pearland Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/12/2021 - 5pm 

University Park Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/26/2021 - 5pm 

Wise County Sheriff’s Office Get Info Peace Officer 06/09/2021 - 5pm 

Brownwood Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/19/2021 - 5pm 

Texas State Technical College Police Dept Get Info Peace Officer 05/07/2021 - 5pm 

Katy Police Department Get Info Telecommunicator 05/09/2021 - 5pm 

Hays County Constables Office Precinct 1 Get Info Peace Officer 05/07/2021 - 5pm 

The City of Burleson Get Info Peace Officer 04/12/2021 - 5pm 

Mont Belvieu Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/12/2021 - 5pm 

Ballinger Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/12/2021 - 5pm 

City of Graham Get Info Peace Officer 04/23/2021 - 5pm 

Bastrop Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/12/2021 - 5pm 

Stratford Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/16/2021 - 5pm 

Rollingwood Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/03/2021 - 5pm 

Mercedes Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/18/2021 - 5pm 

Manvel Police Department Get Info Fire Marshal 04/18/2021 - 5pm 

Corsicana Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/16/2021 - 5pm 

Bruceville-Eddy Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/15/2021 - 5pm 

Bandera County Sheriff's Office Get Info Peace Officer 05/21/2021 - 5pm 

Lufkin Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/16/2021 - 5pm 

Galena Park Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/16/2021 - 5pm 

Sour Lake Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 5/23/2021 - 5pm 

City of Harker Heights Get Info Peace Officer Trainee 04/23/2021 - 5pm 

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Tarrant County Sheriff's Office Get Info Peace Officer 04/24/2021 - 5pm 

Mansfield ISD PD Get Info Peace Officer 06/01/2021 - 5pm 

Sunset Valley Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/17/2021 - 5pm 

University of Texas at Arlington Police Dept. Get Info Peace Officer 04/19/2021 - 5pm 

Pewitt CISD Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/24/2021 - 5pm 

Richland Hills Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/26/2021 - 5pm 

League City Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/07/2021 - 4pm 

Wylie Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/26/2021 - 5pm 

Houston County Sheriff's Office Get Info Peace Officer 05/26/2021 - 5pm 

Saginaw Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/26/2021 - 5pm 

Galena Park Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/16/2021 - 5pm 

Round Rock Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 04/18/2021 - 5pm 

City of Selma Get Info Peace Officer 04/30/2021 - 5pm 

Belton Police Department Get Info Peace Officer 05/10/2021 - 5pm 

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PLACE YOUR FULL PAGE 

HERE FOR ONLY $250. 

RUNS MONTHLY UNTIL YOU 

FILL ALL POSITIONS 


EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS 

• Paid Vacation 

• Sick Leave 

• Paid Holidays 

• Personal Days 

• Compensatory Days 

• Certification Pay 

 

 

 

 

ALDINE ISD POLICE DEPT. 

now accepting applications for 

Full-Time Police Officers 

MUST HOLD A CURRENT TCOLE 

PEACE OFFICE CERTIFICATE 

Salary starting at $47,211 

with no experience 

TO APPLY VISIT 

WWW.ALDINEISD.ORG 

OR 

Contact the Personnel 

Department at 

281-985-7571 

OR 

Contact Sergeant R. Hall at 

281-442-4923 

HIRING PROCESS 

• Physical Agility Test 

• Written Exam 

• Oral Board Panel Interview 

• Complete Personal History Statement 

• Psychological Evaluation 

• Medical Examination 

• Interview with the Chief of Police 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

104 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 

 


MAKE A 

DIFFERENCE 

IN YOUR 

COMMUNITY 

We are looking for outstanding individuals to 

 

mission will be to prevent crime and disorder, build 

partnerships within the community, and positively 

 

CITY OF PEARLAND, TEXAS 

• Competitive Salary • Outstanding Training 

 

The City of Pearland is one of the fastest growing 

communities within the region. Pearland is located 

approximately 20 minutes south of Downtown Houston 

and the current population is approximately 130,000 

residents. 

JOIN OUR TEAM 

HIRING POLICE OFFICERS AND CADETS 

 

 

TEST DATE: 

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 8:30 A.M. 

Register by: April 12. 

Pearland Recreation Center & Natatorium 

4141 Bailey Road, Pearland, TX 77584. 

Doors Open: 7:15 a.m. No admittance after 7:45 a.m. 

Candidates must park in the north parking lot. 

SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES WILL APPLY 

• 

• Mandatory temperature checks 

 

• Candidates seated 6 feet apart 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

106 The For BLUES additional POLICE information MAGAZINE and to register for an upcoming Civil Service Exam, visit 

The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 107 

pearlandtx.gov/PDCareers

LATERAL DEPUTY 


Apply today! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selma Police Department 

9375 Corporate Drive 

Selma, TX 78154 

110 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 


Starting Salary 

$44,995 

 

Vacation, Holiday, 

and Sick Pay 

Provided 

www.richlandhills.com 

MUSTANG 

RIDGE POLICE 

DEPARTMENT 

NOW HIRING 

CERTIFIED 

OFFICERS 

 

 

12 Hour Shifts 

 

401K Provided 

 

Angel Armor Load 

Bearing Vest 

Provided 

SUBMIT COMPLETED 

PERSONAL HISTORY 

STATEMENTS TO: 

lcantu@mustangridgetx.gov 

clerk@mustangridgetx.gov 

JOIN OUR RANKS! 

 

 

 

- 

 

-Hills-TX-- 

Applicant Requirements 

 

The City of Mustang Ridge is situated along US Hwy 183 and is 

 

 

located primarily in Travis County with portions in Caldwell and 

- 

At least 21 yrs. old 

Bastrop County. We are minutes away from Circuit of the 

https://www.tcole.texas.gov/ 

 

content/forms-andapplications 

 

 

 

Americas and ABIA. Officers work rotating 12 hour shifts and we 

utilize the Travis County Sheriff’s Office for Dispatch. 

 

 

112 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 

The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 113 

 

 

Salary Scale $50,003-66,976 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

817-616-3776 

 

Texas Class C Drivers License

Ingram Police Department 

NOW HIRING 

FULL-TIME POLICE OFFICERS 

A PROFESSION THAT MAKES YOU PROUD 

Ingram Police Department 

226 Hwy 39 

Ingram, Texas 78025 

(830)367-2636 

Starting $46,720 

 

Health, Life Insurance, etirement 

match, take home vehicle. 

Minimum of basic police certification required 


NOW HIRING for Multiple Officer Positions! 

Come join the MISD Police Department 

Mansfield ISD Police Department currently employs over 61 

well-trained professional peace officers. Together, we ensure 

the safety of our students, school district, and its employees. 

Employment advantages include: 

226 day a year work calendar, 

Monday thru Fridays work days 

Majority of officers’ work day shift hours. 

Extended breaks during Thanksgiving, Christmas, 

Spring Break, and the week of July 4 th . 

In addition officers also receive 6 days discretionary 

leave and 10 personal (sick) days per year. 

Available Overtime 

Provided uniforms, dry cleaning, all police equipment, 

and duty weapon. 

Additional Officer training to achieve increased levels 

of peace officer certifications. 

CERTIFICATION HOUR ANNUAL 

Based Pay 

Recruit $24.12 $43,608 

Basic $26.28 $47,514 

Intermediate $28.42 $51,383 

Advanced $30.56 $55,252 

Masters $32.72 $59,157 

Other benefits include Teachers Retirement System, optional 

health, dental, vision, and life insurance. 

We are currently hiring several officers to fill new schools and 

vacant positions. 

For more information Please contact the Mansfield ISD Police 

Department at 817-299-6000 or go to our District website at: 

start the application process: 

https://www.mansfieldisd.org/join-misd/apply-with-misd 

Right Click to open Hyperlink 


Wylie Police Department Mission: Our mission is to impact the quality of life, by providing a professional 

level of service that will foster, support, and build relationships with those we serve. 

 

HIRING PROCESS: 

SALARY RANGE 

Years of Service Annual Salary 

BENEFITS: 

Testing Dates (assigned by April 23th): 

Apply By: April 16, 2021 

www.burlesontx.com/jobs 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Complete and submit a City of 

Wylie job application: https:// 

www.governmentjobs.com/ 

careers/wylietexas 

Written Exam (exempt for Laterals) 

Physical Agility Test 

Complete and submit a Personal 

History Statement 

 

 

Police Chief Interview 

Polygraph Examination 

Psychological Evaluation 

Medical Examination 

 

1 Year—Step 0 $56,671.60 

2 Years—Step 1 $58,088.39 

3 Years—Step 2 $59,540.59 

4 Years—Step 3 $61,029.11 

5 Years—Step 4 $62,554.84 

6 Years—Step 5 $64,118.71 

7 Years—Step 6 $65,721.68 

8 Years—Step 7 $67,364.72 

9 Years—Step 8 $69,048.84 

10 Years—Step 9 $70,775.06 

11 Years—Step 10 $72,544.43 

12+ Years—Step 11 $74,358.04 

RECRUITING CONTACT: 

Wylie Police Department 

2000 Hwy 78 North 

Wylie, TX 75098 

Sergeant Mark Johnson 

mark.johnson@wylietexas.gov 

972-429-8013 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City Paid Medical/Dental/Vision 

Texas Municipal Retirement System 

(TMRS) 14% City Contribution 

 

Time) 

City Paid Uniforms 

City Paid Training 

Life Insurance and AD&D 

Long Term Disability Insurance 

Employee Assistance Program 

Longevity Pay 

Tuition Reimbursement 

Free Recreation Center Membership 

 

 

Deferred Compensation Plan 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.wylietexas.gov/

APRIL 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 4

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