OCT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 10.1
OCT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 10.1 WE REMEMBER: We say good bye to a true hero, Senior Police Officer William “Bill” Jeffrey. FEATURE STORIES: • Biden Try’s To Eliminate Border Mounted Officers • Washington Try’s To Shift Focus From Drone Strike To Baseless Whipping Story At The Border • Who Wants To Be A Cop Part 6 DEPARTMENTS • Publisher’s Thoughts Part I. • Editor’s Thoughts • Your Thoughts • News Around the State • News Around the Country • Products & Services -Alternative Ballistics • Honoring our Fallen Heroes • Warstories • Aftermath • Open Road-Mustang Mach E Goes to Patrol • 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 • Parting Shots • Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas • Last Page -Take Out the Trash
OCT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 10.1
WE REMEMBER: We say good bye to a true hero, Senior Police Officer William “Bill” Jeffrey.
FEATURE STORIES:
• Biden Try’s To Eliminate Border Mounted Officers
• Washington Try’s To Shift Focus From Drone Strike
To Baseless Whipping Story At The Border
• Who Wants To Be A Cop Part 6
DEPARTMENTS
• Publisher’s Thoughts Part I.
• Editor’s Thoughts
• Your Thoughts
• News Around the State
• News Around the Country
• Products & Services -Alternative Ballistics
• Honoring our Fallen Heroes
• Warstories
• Aftermath
• Open Road-Mustang Mach E Goes to Patrol
• 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
• Parting Shots
• Now Hiring - L.E.O. Positions Open in Texas
• Last Page -Take Out the Trash
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WORDS BY BRIAN WHITEHEAD<br />
Fallen Marine, Hunter Lopez ‘died a<br />
hero,’ friend says at funeral.<br />
One day years ago, Juan Carlos<br />
Lopez walked into his nephew’s<br />
bedroom and noticed a day circled<br />
on his calendar.<br />
Graduation.<br />
“Uncle J.C.,” Lopez recalled his<br />
then-teenage nephew telling<br />
him, “When I graduate, I’m letting<br />
you know now I’m going to<br />
be a Marine.”<br />
Among the many reasons U.S.<br />
Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez was<br />
beloved, he never rescinded a<br />
promise, family and friends recalled<br />
Saturday, September 18,<br />
during a memorial service at the<br />
Palm Springs Convention Center<br />
honoring and thanking the fallen<br />
22-year-old Indio native.<br />
“Hunter always had a plan<br />
and was able to execute,” longtime<br />
friend Nick Conway said.<br />
“There aren’t many people from<br />
our generation that have that<br />
strength and discipline. He was<br />
the kind of friend you always<br />
wanted by your side, the kind of<br />
friend who would do anything<br />
for you.”<br />
Heroism marked the final moments<br />
of Lopez’s life, Riverside<br />
County Sheriff’s Lt. Tim Brause<br />
said Saturday.<br />
The 2017 La Quinta High School<br />
graduate was one of 13 U.S.<br />
service-members killed in an<br />
attack at the Kabul airport last<br />
month as the U.S was pulling out<br />
of Afghanistan. Two other Inland<br />
Empire Marines, Lance Cpl. Kareem<br />
Nikoui, of <strong>No</strong>rco; and Lance<br />
Cpl. Dylan Merola, of Rancho<br />
Cucamonga, also were killed.<br />
Brause and others noted that,<br />
on that afternoon, Lopez was<br />
rescuing young girls from a rioting<br />
mob before the blast took<br />
his life.<br />
“He died a hero saving the lives<br />
of those he did not know,” Conway<br />
said.<br />
Saturday’s memorial began<br />
with a prayer and a song.<br />
The hundreds of family members,<br />
friends, law enforcement<br />
officials and service men and<br />
women in attendance, as well<br />
as those watching a livestream<br />
on YouTube and Facebook, then<br />
watched a slideshow of photos<br />
chronicling Lopez’s 22 years, set<br />
to the alternative rock songs, “Mr.<br />
Brightside,” by The Killers; and<br />
“Best of You,” by Foo Fighters.<br />
“There aren’t enough words to<br />
express how much of a hero my<br />
nephew was,” Juan Carlos Lopez<br />
said, “not only to his country,<br />
but to his extended family and<br />
friends.”<br />
Lopez, the eldest of three children,<br />
was part of a special crisis<br />
response team sent to provide<br />
security and help State Department<br />
officials process thousands<br />
of people a day at the airport<br />
gates. His mother, Alicia Lopez, is<br />
a Riverside County deputy sheriff<br />
and Riverside Sheriff’s Association<br />
board secretary. His father,<br />
Riverside County Sheriff’s Capt.<br />
Herman Lopez, is La Quinta’s<br />
police chief.<br />
86 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 87