Jan 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 1
Jan 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 1 FEATURE STORIES • New Year Resolutions for 2022 • Remembering Those We’ve Lost to COVID • Remembering Those We’ve Lost to LOD Deaths • Feature Story: They Didn’t Make it • Special Memorial Insert - Officers we Lost in 2021 DEPARTMENTS • Publisher’s Thoughts • Editor’s Thoughts • Your Thoughts • News Around the US • War Stories • Aftermath • Open Road - NYPD Orders Mustang E’s • Healing Our Heroes • Daryl’s Deliberations • HPOU - From the President, Douglas Griffith • Light Bulb Award • Running 4 Heroes • Blue Mental Health with Tina Jaeckle • Off Duty with Rusty Barron • Ads Back in the Day • Parting Shots • Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas • Back Page - Meet the Commish
Jan 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 1
FEATURE STORIES
• New Year Resolutions for 2022
• Remembering Those We’ve Lost to COVID
• Remembering Those We’ve Lost to LOD Deaths
• Feature Story: They Didn’t Make it
• Special Memorial Insert - Officers we Lost in 2021
DEPARTMENTS
• Publisher’s Thoughts
• Editor’s Thoughts
• Your Thoughts
• News Around the US
• War Stories
• Aftermath
• Open Road - NYPD Orders Mustang E’s
• Healing Our Heroes
• Daryl’s Deliberations
• HPOU - From the President, Douglas Griffith
• Light Bulb Award
• Running 4 Heroes
• Blue Mental Health with Tina Jaeckle
• Off Duty with Rusty Barron
• Ads Back in the Day
• Parting Shots
• Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas
• Back Page - Meet the Commish
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
WORDS BY UNNAMED OFFICER<br />
A Cop, a Flight Nurse and Two Endings<br />
I read your feature story last<br />
month, “the Christmas that<br />
almost wasn’t” (reprinted in<br />
this month’s War Story) and<br />
it brought me back almost 20<br />
years when I had nearly the same<br />
experience.<br />
I too had lost a partner who<br />
was standing less than five feet<br />
from me when a sniper’s bullet<br />
ripped through his vest and<br />
killed him instantly. It was the<br />
single worst moment of my life.<br />
The emotions from that day still<br />
haunt me but thankfully I’ve been<br />
able to move past it and have a<br />
somewhat normal life.<br />
It wasn’t Christmas Eve but<br />
rather New Year’s Eve 1999. Yes,<br />
the new millennium was upon<br />
us, and we expected it to be a<br />
busy night. I had been on the<br />
force at the time for nearly 20<br />
years and worked the night<br />
shift by choice. My kids were all<br />
grown, and I was at the end of<br />
a third failed marriage. Working<br />
nights for me was my way of<br />
coping with the emptiness I had<br />
in my life at the time.<br />
On this night and for the previous<br />
30 days, I had a rookie riding<br />
with me after his FTO was injured<br />
in an off-duty car accident.<br />
And truthfully, I didn’t mind. After<br />
20 years of riding by myself I<br />
kind of enjoyed the company and<br />
I also liked the idea of imparting<br />
my knowledge into this young<br />
officer’s mind.<br />
But the FTO program of 1999<br />
isn’t like what you probably have<br />
today. It wasn’t that regimented,<br />
it was more like, ‘ride with<br />
me kid and I’ll show you how it’s<br />
done’ kind of thing. But this kid, I<br />
say kid he was 24, was actually<br />
doing a great job. He had spent<br />
almost 4 months on the evening<br />
shift with his FTO and was about<br />
to be cut loose. So, thirty days<br />
with me and he was ready to go<br />
solo. I’ll dispense with his last<br />
name in case his family might<br />
read this magazine and just use<br />
his first name Randy.<br />
On the night of the shooting,<br />
Randy and I were answering<br />
one disturbance after another.<br />
As you can imagine on this New<br />
Years, everyone was drunk and<br />
getting rowdy. One by one we<br />
were clearing calls. I guess after<br />
the 10th one or so, we became<br />
complacent and weren’t paying<br />
as much attention as we should<br />
have been.<br />
We were dispatched to a call<br />
on our city’s far east side that<br />
was on the extreme east side of<br />
our assigned district. But all the<br />
district cars on that side were<br />
tied up and we took the call to<br />
help them out. Same call as all<br />
the rest. Neighbor called in to<br />
report loud noises, fireworks and<br />
unknown persons possibly firing<br />
guns into the air. More people<br />
are killed on New Years from<br />
falling bullets than any other day<br />
of the year.<br />
We arrived at the complainant’s<br />
house and didn’t see<br />
activity outside nor did we hear<br />
any fireworks or guns being<br />
discharged. As we walked to the<br />
front door, a man in his fifties<br />
opened the door and began<br />
telling us about the neighbors<br />
across the street and how they<br />
had been outside earlier and<br />
were firing guns into the air and<br />
raising all kinds of hell.<br />
It was at that moment that<br />
a single gunshot rang out and<br />
Randy fell forward onto the<br />
man’s porch. I grabbed him by<br />
his vest and drug him behind<br />
a car that was parked in the<br />
driveway less than twenty feet<br />
away. I yelled at the man to go<br />
back inside and go to the back<br />
of the house.<br />
“Unit 10E50 shots fired, officer<br />
down, officer down, I need<br />
backup and EMS NOW…. NO<br />
send me Care Flight he’s not<br />
breathing”<br />
“All units assist the officer,<br />
officer down, I repeat officer<br />
down at 103 East Third, all<br />
units Code 3 Officer Down.”<br />
“Unit 10E50 Care Flight has<br />
been dispatched”<br />
In the seconds, maybe minutes<br />
following that first shot,<br />
the suspect fired several more<br />
rounds towards us hitting the<br />
car we were behind as well<br />
as the sides of the complainant’s<br />
house. It was surreal in that you<br />
could hear the rounds hitting<br />
near us and seconds later you<br />
heard the rifle shot. I fired several<br />
shots towards the suspect, but<br />
he was over 50 yards away and<br />
it was pointless to keep firing. I<br />
focused my attention on trying<br />
to stop Randy’s bleeding and<br />
trying CPR.<br />
But the rounds kept ricocheting<br />
off the concrete and unless<br />
I moved into a better position, I<br />
was going to take a round myself.<br />
I heard the sirens in the distance<br />
and knew help would be<br />
here soon. But we had to survive<br />
NOW.<br />
I fired two more rounds towards<br />
the house and dragged<br />
Randy farther up the driveway<br />
to another vehicle parked beside<br />
the house. Seconds later units<br />
started arriving and the suspect<br />
fired several rounds at their cars.<br />
Then he ran in the house and that<br />
was the last I saw of him and the<br />
end of the shooting. He barricaded<br />
himself in the house and after<br />
a 4-hour standoff with SWAT,<br />
shot himself in the head with a<br />
9mm.<br />
Care Flight arrived and they<br />
worked on Randy all the way<br />
to hospital, but I knew he was<br />
gone. I had rode in the helicopter<br />
with him and was there when<br />
his wife arrived. She and I had<br />
met a few days prior at a Christmas<br />
luncheon, and she ran up to<br />
me in the ER. I didn’t realize it,<br />
but I was covered in blood, and<br />
said I’m so sorry but they did everything<br />
they could. I’m sooooo<br />
sorry. She fell to the floor, and I<br />
54 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 55