Today is “National Thank a Police Officer Day,” and with it came some bittersweet moments. A Fort Worth, Texas police officer known as “the cement of his unit” succumbed to being shot in the head while effecting arrest of serial robbers on Friday. Fort Worth police Officer Garret Hull, 40, remained in ICU until he passed away yesterday.
FWPD police Chief Joel Fitzgerald offered a press conference hours after Officer Hull was shot:
Also on Friday morning, NYC Corrections Officer Jonathan Narain was shot and killed by a motorcyclist as he sat at a Red light in Queens, NY. Officer Narain was on his way to report for duty at the Anna M. Kross jail in Riker’s Island, NY. Reports claim that Officer Narain and the motorcyclist had some sort of verbal dispute stemming from a road rage incident. While stopped at the Red light, the motorcyclist brandished a gun and shot Narain in the left temple. A NYC paramedic unit responding to a separate shooting incident came upon Officer Narain and rendered aid. It was too late. Slumped over his steering wheel, 27-year-old Narain bled on his uniform and perished under the traffic signal.
According to the New York Daily News, a $10,000 reward is offered for information leading to the arrest of Narain’s killer.
As the NYC cops investigated Narain’s murder and the Fort Worth police family held each other up and navigated through the gut-wrenching scenario of a line of duty death (LODD), the Chicago police force endured its third police suicide in as many months.
In the parking lot of Chicago’s Calumet District police station, a 54-year-old female police officer sitting in her car killed herself with her service weapon. That police suicide marks the second self-inflicted police officer fatality the Chicago police force suffered at that very same station. The prior one took place in July 2018, the CBS News affiliate in Chicago reported, adding that “Officer Brandon Krueger, 36, killed himself in the parking lot with his service weapon on July 8. Two days later, 47-year-old Vinita Williams died of a heart attack at the same police station.
“On Labor Day, 47-year-old officer Steven Bechina committed suicide inside his vehicle on first block of North Desplaines, in the city’s Near West Side.”
It is perhaps a huge paradox that the greatest nation in the world is so raw and vulnerable. Turbulent times exposing the complexities of human psychology seems to culminate in a steep price. As to police suicides, I’ve experienced two such episodes. I remain befuddled, pained, and in search of the “missed signs.”
I came across some police suicide statistics the other day, and swallowed hard when I consumed the dreadful notion aggregating the despair among police officers. Since we are carefully balancing a would-be special day thanking police officers, I will save that article (with mind-numbing statistics) for a later date.
Regarding line-of-duty deaths such as Fort Worth police Officer Hull’s, indeed it is a component of police work and the territorial constraints played out between the good guys and the bad. Some say these incidents are the cause and effect of significantly reduced police applicants across the country. Although I am not presently armed with studies to the contrary, I have a general sense that many law enforcement aspirants do exist and are forging their places among police agencies near you, despite the naysayers’ narratives.
Police Pendulum Swings
On a good note, a metal band I wrote about in June 2018 stayed true to their word and recently offered significant proceeds from their concert tour. Five Finger Death Punch (FFDP) has provided a $95,000 check to the Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.) organization. The rockers make clear their reverence for first responders and backed that with hard-earned funds for loved ones whose police officer never made it home.
As FFDP’s guitarist Zoltan Bathory emphatically stated in a June 2018 Loudwire interview, “Realistically, we’re not living in a world where everybody’s got flowers and smiling and are peaceful or [chanting] ‘Kumbaya.'”
“So, for those who realize this is not reality, you have to accept that each city has a police force, and they are really that thin blue line, that thin layer of ice on a deep ocean of f–king chaos, and savagely things can happen to them.”
Five Finger Death Punch’s latest video is entirely dedicated to police culture and acutely depicts the starkness of being a cop, with personal/professional nuances that only roughly 900,000 nationwide can attest to:
That powerful four-plus-minute FFDP video you just viewed encapsulates police partnerships, to each other and the community, while also bringing the fight to masked monsters spraying bullets and pouring salt in those raw and vulnerable human constructs. We all emote and appreciate things in our own ways. For me, such a portrayal of reality-based police work underscores the gratitude we ought to offer cops each and every of the 365 opportunities, besides the national day of recognition calendared for the cause.
The whopping check granted C.O.P.S. is destined to support in myriad ways the survivors of fallen law enforcement officials. The gesture is certainly not bringing back their spouse or daddy or mommy or son or daughter, but it surely is catering some consolation and comfort while the grieving process trickles down cheeks, one rivulet at a time.
From the members of Five Finger Death Punch are the following attributes: “We’ve had the privilege to work with many veteran and police organizations for years. Today we are making this donation as a token of our respect and gratitude to those who committed to protect and serve, to those who signed up to bravely hold that thin blue line between ‘civilization as we know it’ and ‘lawless savagery and chaos.’ Unfortunately, every 58 hours a police officer who believes in something – sacrifices everything and dies in the line of duty. Our chosen charity – C.O.P.S. (Concerns Of Police Survivors) helps and benefits the families of our fallen heroes in blue.”
As C.O.P.S. Executive Director Dianne Bernhard expressed to Loudwire magazine: “C.O.P.S. is grateful to be the recipient of such a generous donation from Five Finger Death Punch. We not only appreciate their amazing musical talent, but their support for surviving families and co-workers of America’s law enforcement truly sets them apart. Thank you on behalf of 47,000 survivors!”
Indeed, thank you 365X.
