An all-too-silent cop killer needs to be stopped
Two things make me sad. Okay, many more than two things make me sad, but I can narrow it down to just two of them for the purposes of this column: The first is the blossoming concept that somehow socialism becomes a successful tenet once the word “democratic” is placed in front of it, and the other is when my friends go to sleep and never wake up.
Quite frankly there isn’t enough page space to accommodate my supporting evidence of such buffoonery in regards to the first subject, but the second is both succinct and something I don’t mind talking about too much, so it should fit just nicely.
A few mornings ago (four to be precise), a co-worker essentially did just as I stated. Forty-nine years old, roughly 20 years on The Job, and he ultimately succumbed to complications from blood clots. (Apologies to family and fellow friends for oversimplifying something like this, but I am hoping for a pass to make a larger point.)
It immediately brought to mind the first time I was aware of this happening when a then-fellow detective (this time literally) went to sleep for the last time on December 22nd, 2010 after a long evening’s work.
These two examples then started to bring to mind the four others in the years between that are still with us but off The Job medically. Blood clots. Strokes that have happened or waiting to happen, all isolated in this small professional demographic.
They’re caused by blood either not flowing sufficiently and allowing platelets to clump, or from good ol’ cholesterol building up (and breaking free). In either case at my host agency the presumption is the former for disability pension purposes (depending on the whim of the current board members, as they are a separate entity from the disability-declaring employer) since we’re not in the Social Security system and since we’re required to sit in a car or at a desk for 8 to 12 hours at a time wearing elastic compression devices (known as “ballistic armor”) underneath polyester further supplemented by a constricting 3-inch belt with 10 or 12 pounds of steel and lead weighing it down.
But who is predisposed to such clotting is completely unknown, since the afflicted are generally in as good or better shape than the average po-po.
I’m not blaming The Job on this, given the small statistical sampling here, but I can’t quite bring myself to exonerate it either. I just want all my friends to wake up.
Such a strange profession. Of all the things coppers are subjected to— both the things they are aware of and not aware of—this one is in some ways scarier than the more obvious ones. Taking a bullet, crashing a car, even contracting a blood-born pathogen, are equally horrible ways to be injured (or die), but at least they have firm footing in the psychology of what we expect. But “not waking up”?
A copper, much less an average Joe, can’t live in a world of perpetual fear of the unknown because quite frankly that’s not “living” at all. Not to mention that walking around with a pistol in one hand and a portable pharmacy in the other is just downright impractical in a customer service industry like policing, but I think you get my point.
Both co-workers I referred to above who passed so unexpectedly and prematurely were respected by their peers and loved by their families (and thus knew they were loved prior to their long goodnight), but while you don’t need the reminder...double down on making a point to make every moment count.
And if anyone else thinks the odds of clot-related issues in such a small sampling is out of the statistical norm...? Feedback (beyond the usual suggestions to fire and prosecute me for my opinions) would be appreciated.
Be well. Literally.
When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.