DEC 2020 Blues Vol 36 No. 12 - 36TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO

IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED IN THE LINE OF DUTY DUE TO COVID As this year’s Holiday Season broad daylight attacks against 0,000 gets under way, we here ..what the officers it won’t who were get doing you. nothing Blues cannot help but to hit the proverbial “Pause Button” for a moment and humbly and sincerely reflect upon those whom we’ve lost this year. The Staff at The Blues are truly saddened and teary eyed, as we reflect on all the names, faces, friends, family, brothers and sisters, whose lives we’ve lost this year. Whether by violence, accident or this damn virus. This year has taken a record number of our Brothers and Sisters away from us. Our Thin Blue Line, perhaps thinner than ever before. For not only have we endured record losses of Law Enforcement Officers, we’ve endured record protests, marches, online and in person attacks of the likes never seen before. Officer after officer beaten, threatened, spit upon, human waste thrown upon, burned, run over, stabbed and shot as never before. Brazen, more than wearing their uniform and sitting at an intersection or in some parking lot. What some fail to realize or perhaps justify in their minds, is the fact that it’s not just the officer you’re attacking. It’s their family and friends as well. Their mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. It’s their brothers and sisters, coworkers, teachers and teammates from back in the day. For every officer attacked or killed, no less than a hundred people are deeply, personally and directly affected. When you look at it in such context, one can begin to see the widespread carnage, we in Law Enforcement are all enduring. The weight is nearly, unfathomable. Immeasurable pain, loss and suffering are wrongly inflicted because of no other reason or logic than “They were a cop, so they deserved it!” As of the date this is being written, 263 Law Enforcement Officers lost their lives in the Line of Duty. This number (much more than just a number, mind you) comes to a 102 percent increase of last year’s total number of Officers lost. Keeping in mind, this is the first of December, we’ve thirty more days to go in this terrible year of 2020. In closing, it is not all loss, doom and gloom. We refuse to end this article on such a note. There were babies born unto those families who lost an officer. Children started Kindergarten while others, graduated High School. Some of the surviving children have become Law Enforcement Officers, themselves. Carrying on a tenacious tradition where their Mother or Father had left off. So much sacrifice and its ultimate endurance of profound loss Senior Police Officer Ernest Leal, Jr. Houston Police Department, TX EOW: Friday, November 27, 2020 Correctional Officer Glenn F. Martinez Guam Department of Corrections EOW: Monday, November 23, 2020 Detention Officer Dwight Willis Greene County Sheriff’s Office, EOW: Sunday, November 22, 2020 Correctional Officer Richard Allen Wright Missouri Department of Corrections EOW: Thursday, November 19, 2020 Agent Christopher Doyle Carney Department of Homeland Security EOW: Monday, November 16, 2020 cannot be ignored. And yet, neither can the fact that out of all the loss, the old saying of “We’ll find in the ashes, that which we lost in the fire”, rings true. Out of everything and everyone we’ve lost; we must continue to stand back up and hold the line. If not for ourselves than certainly we owe this in the very least to those whom we’ve lost and held, Deputy Sheriff Johnny R. Tunches Harris County Sheriff’s Office, EOW: Tuesday, November 3, 2020 Lieutenant Loyd Ray Hamm Richland Parish Sheriff’s Office EOW: Monday, November 2, 2020 Corporal Avery Hillman Crisp County Sheriff’s Office EOW: Saturday, October 31, 2020 Police Officer Jerad Lindsey Tulsa Police Department EOW: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 Deputy Sheriff Raul Gomez Wharton County Sheriff’s Office EOW: Monday, October 26, 2020 oh so close and so dear. As December 1, 2020 these are the officers who have died in the Line of Duty due to COVID. Please keep these officers and their families in your prayers. Let us all pray that COVID comes to an end soon and we don’t lose another brother or sister in blue to this horrible virus. Captain Jeff Sewell Oklahoma Highway Patrol EOW: Saturday, September 26, 2020 Customs Officer Renie Tumanda Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency EOW: Friday, September 25, 2020 Master Jail Officer Robert Charles Sunukjian Hampton Roads Regional Jail EOW: Thursday, September 24, 2020 Captain Randy M. Vallot Richland Parish Sheriff’s Office EOW: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 Deputy Sheriff Christopher Smith McLennan County Sheriff’s Office EOW: Monday, September 21, 2020 Lieutenant Marzell Jerome Brooks Brookhaven Police Department, EOW: Sunday, November 15, 2020 Police Officer Alex Arango Everman Police Department, EOW: Thursday, October 22, 2020 Sergeant Charles Edward Norton Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, GA EOW: Sunday, September 20, 2020 Agent Juan R. Ramírez-Padilla Puerto Rico Police Department, EOW: Friday, November 13, 2020 Major Rickie A. Groves Kennett Police Department EOW: Friday, October 16, 2020 Officer Carlo Jay Cayabyab Department of Homeland Security Officer EOW: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 Officer Domingo Jasso, III Department of Homeland Security EOW: Thursday, November 5, 2020 Sheriff Pete Smith Sumter County Sheriff’s Office EOW: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 Sergeant Eric John Twisdale Clay County Sheriff’s Office EOW: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 Sergeant William Darnell DeWitt Township Police Department EOW: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 Sergeant Dennis R. Oliver, Jr. Highland Village Police Department, EOW: Friday, October 2, 2020 Deputy Sheriff Angela Chavers Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, EOW: Saturday, September 12, 2020 First Lieutenant Roberto Rodríguez-Hernández Puerto Rico Police Department\ EOW: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 Correctional Officer Donald E. Parker Texas Department of Criminal Justice EOW: Thursday, October 1, 2020 Corrections Officer Susan Ann Roberts Williamson County Sheriff’s Office EOW: Saturday, September 12, 2020 8 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 9