Steve Cooley - Blue Lives Matter: In the Line of Duty

BLUE LIVES MATTER: IN THE LINE OF DUTY

Steven Cooley & Robert Schirn

BLUE LIVES MATTER SERIES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, expect for passages used for the purpose of reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

For information, bulk orders, or to use this as a part of your training programs, please contact:

TitleTown Publishing

P.O. Box 12093 | Green Bay, WI 54307-12093

920.737.8051 | www.titletownpublishing.com

Edited by Kylie Shannon & Cathy Hawks

Front cover design by Erika Block

Interior design and layout by Euan Monaghan

Design & Layout Editor | Travis J. Vanden Heuvel

Contact Publisher Tracy Ertl for all review, media, reprint

inquires at (920) 7378051 | tracy@titletownpublishing.com

Represented for Film and Television by

Intellectual Property Group

Office of Joel Gotler | (310) 4025154 | joel@ipglm.com

12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 500, Los Angeles, CA 90025

PUBLISHERS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Cooley, Steve; Schirn, Robert

BLUE LIVES MATTER: IN THE LINE OF DUTY / Cooley & Schirn.

1st edition. Green Bay, WI : TitleTown Pub., c2017.

ISBN: 978-09-96295-16-1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In valor there is hope.

Tacitus

Publishers Note

In addition to leading a mainstream publishing company and working on wonderful projects like Blue Lives Matter , Ive dedicated more than 25 years of my professional life to public safety communications. Through my service as a 911 dispatcher (supervisor) at Brown County Public Safety Communications and my mission with the worlds largest public safety education organization (APCO) as an instructor and presenter, Ive deepened my appreciation for and respect of all men and women who wear the badge. Blue Lives Matter: In the Line of Duty has given me the opportunity to take my vocation as a public servant and combine it with my entrepreneurial spirit and passion for storytelling in a way that honors the fallen and teaches valuable lessons about officer safety.

One of my favorite lines from scripture comes from Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. (Jeremiah 1:5) Its extremely unlikely that you our reader and I will ever meet, yet I feel like I know you intimately. We are connected to one another through our blue family. You are police officers and sheriffs deputies, dispatchers and records professionals, parents, spouses and children. And weve been brought together because we have a common mission: We want to do everything in our power to ensure that every member of the law enforcement community is able to safely return home at the end of their tour.

This book is my best attempt to convey admiration, respect, and appreciation for the risks and work of our blue family. It is my hope that this book and series has the ability to impact and save lives by humanizing officers and their families, while creating deeply needed, effective conversation. I am humbled to be part of the blue family and this project.

Respectfully,

Tracy C. Ertl

Chief Executive Officer & Publisher

TitleTown Publishing

Prologue

(Commentary of Steve Cooley)

INTRODUCTION

T hroughout my career, I have been exposed to officers killed in the line of duty. My first recollection was when I was a reserve LAPD officer working in Newton Division in the mid-seventies when an officer was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop. Finally it dawned on me how potentially dangerous it is to be a police officer.

During my time as District Attorney, I went to many active crime scene investigations where police officers had been shot and killed or seriously wounded. I strongly supported efforts to place special emphasis on the prosecutions of those responsible for the murder of police officers.

When I joined the District Attorneys Office as a brand new prosecutor, I became emotionally involved in many of my cases. I was unprepared to being exposed to the large number of persons committing murders, rapes, robberies, serious assaults, and selling large amounts of narcotics. Gradually a certain acceptance and cynicism set in as I was prosecuting these cases on a regular basis. I became hardened to these crimes. I prosecuted all these cases thoroughly and professionally but without becoming personally or emotionally involved, with one exception.

The exception involves the murder of a police officer. To this day, I have a strong emotional reaction when I hear about the murder of a police officer. I have known and worked with many peace officers during my career as a prosecutor. When the job is done right, there is not a more admirable nor noble profession, to protect and to serve the public.

LESSONS LEARNED

One purpose in writing this book was to memorialize and honor police officers who have given their lives in service to their community and to their profession. Although this book contains eight chapters involving the death of eight officers and one police canine, it is dedicated to all officers who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.

Although there is nothing positive about the death of a police officer, the authors have included a Lessons Learned segment at the end of each chapter. Former LAPD Captain Greg Meyer is one of the nations foremost experts on police tactics and on officer safety, having lectured and provided expert testimony on these topics throughout the country over the years. He has contributed his opinions and expertise in the preparation of these Lessons Learned segments. It is hoped that police officers in the future can benefit from this component of the book to enhance their safety and awareness of potentially dangerous situations.

I remember a bit of advice that my father, a former FBI agent, gave me when I told him how excited I was to be an LAPD reserve officer. Fine, Steve. Just dont get your ass shot off.

CAPOS (Crimes Against Peace Officers Section)

In my view, the murder of a police officer is a crime that attacks the very fabric of our society. A strong police presence is in the public interest because it maintains public safety. Without the police to maintain law and order, there would be anarchy. The prosecution of persons who have murdered police officers is one of the most important functions performed by a prosecuting agency.

To that end, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office maintains a special unit called the Crimes Against Peace Officers Section (CAPOS) to handle these cases.

In 1978, District Attorney John Van de Kamp hired private attorney Johnnie Cochran to be the Assistant District Attorney, one of the two highest positions in the office below the District Attorney. He remained in this position for about two years before returning to private practice. Cochran had already established a reputation handling high profile cases and police brutality cases. One of his responsibilities was oversight over cases involving police misconduct, and he oversaw a rollout program in which a deputy district attorney and a district attorney investigator would go to the scene of a shooting by a police officer involving injury to a civilian.

Law enforcement officials suggested to District Attorney John Van de Kamp that if he was allocating resources to investigate police officers who fire their weapons, it was only fair to allocate similar resources when a police officer was the victim of a violent assault. In 1980, Van de Kamp created CAPOS. As written in my 20032005 Biennial Report, the mission of CAPOS was described as follows: