A note from the President, Roger Mayberry
I got this from a friend who found it and I wanted to share it with all of you and
hope that you will also pass it on to everyone you know.
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Confessions of a Police Officer:
by Officer Jill Wragg
Yarmouth (Massachusetts) Police Department

Dear Citizens, Neighbors, Friends and Family, My name is Jill and I am a cop. That means that the pains and joys of my personal life are often muted by my work. I resent the intrusion but I confuse my self with my job almost as often as you do. The label "police officer" creates a false image of who I really am. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating between two worlds. My work is not just protecting and serving. It's preserving that buffer that exists in the space between what you think the world is, and what the world really is.

My job isn't like television. The action is less frequent, and more graphic. It is not exhilarating to point a gun at someone. Pooled blood has a disgusting metallic smell and steams a little when the temperature drops. CPR isn't an instant miracle and it's no fun listening to an elderly grandmother's ribs break while I keep her heart beating. I'm not flattered by your curiosity about my work. I don't keep a record of which incident was the most frightening, or the strangest, or the bloodiest, or even the funniest. I don't tell you about my day because I don't want to share the images that haunt me.

But I do have some confessions to make:

Sometimes my stereo is too loud. Andrea Bocelli's voice makes it easier to forget the wasted body of the young man who died alone in a rented room because his family feared the stigma of AIDS. Beethoven's 9th symphony erases the sight of the nurses who sobbed as they scrubbed layers of dirt and slime from a neglected 2-year-old's skin. The Rolling Stones' angry beat assures me that it was ignorance that drove a young mother to draw blood when she bit her toddler on the cheek in an attempt to teach him not to bite.

Sometimes I set a bad example. I exceeded the speed limit on my way home from work because I had trouble shedding the adrenalin that kicked in when I discovered that the man I handcuffed during a drug raid was sitting on a loaded 9mm pistol.

Sometimes I seem rude. I was distracted and forgot to smile when you greeted me in the store because I was remembering the anguished, whispered confession of a teenager who pushed away his drowning brother to save his own life.

Sometimes I'm not as sympathetic as you'd like. I'm not concerned that your 15-year-old daughter is dating an 18-year-old because I just comforted the parents of a young man who slashed his own throat while they slept in the next bedroom. I was terse on the phone because I resented the burden of having to weigh the value of two lives when I was pointing my gun at an armed man who kept begging me to kill him.

Confessions of a Police Officer continued...

I laugh when you cringe away from the mess in your teen's room because I know the revulsion of feeling a heroin addict's blood trickling toward an open cut on my arm. If I was silent when you whined about your overbearing mother it's because I really wanted to tell you that I spoke to one of our high school friends today. I found her mother slumped behind the wheel of her car in a tightly closed garage. She had dressed in her best outfit before rolling down the windows and starting the engine.

On the other hand, if I seem totally oblivious to the blood on my uniform, or the names people call me, or the hateful editorials, it's because I am remembering the lessons my job has taught me.

I learned not to sweat the small stuff. Grape juice on the beige sofa and puppy pee on the oriental carpet don't faze me because I know what arterial bleeding and decaying bodies can do to one's decor.

I learned when to shut out the world and take a mental health day. I skipped your daughter's 4th birthday party because I was thinking about the six children under the age of 10 whose mother left them unattended to go out with a friend. When the 3-year-old offered the dog the milk from her cereal bowl, the dog attacked her, tearing open her head and staining the sandbox with blood. The little girl's siblings had to pry her head out of the dog's jaws - twice.

I learned that everyone has a lesson to teach me. Two mothers engaged in custody battles taught me not to judge a book by its cover. The teenage mother on welfare mustered the strength to refrain from crying in front of her worried child while the well-dressed, upper-class mother literally played tug of war with her toddler before running into traffic with the shrieking child in her arms.

I learned that nothing given from the heart is truly gone. A hug, a smile, a reassuring word, or an attentive ear can bring an injured or distraught person back to the surface, and help me refocus.

And I learned not to give up, ever! That split second of terror when I think I have finally engaged the one who is young enough and strong enough to take me down taught me that I have only one restriction: my own mortality.

One week in May has been set aside as Police Memorial Week, a time to remember those officers who didn't make it home after their shift. But why wait? Take a moment to tell an officer that you appreciate her work. Smile and say "Hi" when he's getting coffee. Bite your tongue when you start to tell a "bad cop" story. Better yet, find the time to tell a "good cop" story. The family at the next table may be a cop's family.

Nothing given from the heart is truly gone. It is kept in the hearts of the recipients. Give from the heart. Give something back to the officers who risk everything they have.

Jill Wragg is a retired Police Officer from Massachusetts.
She can be reached at JKWragg@yahoo.com

(This piece is copyrighted and can be used by permission only)

Remember ….National Police Officers Week is: May 13-19

Legislation to Undo a Court Decision Barring Public Access to
Police Discipline Records Deserves Support!

Sunday, April 22, 2007, Editorial: Fighting against official secrecy; an Orange County Register editorial

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is now considering the creation of a much-needed citizen oversight panel to allow some outside eyes and public accountability when allegations arise of mistreatment by deputies within our jails or on our streets. But even if such a panel is created, the public is still cut out of the process, because of a disastrous California Supreme Court decision last year, known as Copley Press v. Superior Court.

In the case, the San Diego Union-Tribune sought to obtain records from a civil service commission hearing that dealt with a terminated deputy sheriff. The commission refused, and the state's high court upheld that refusal. As a result, records regarding police misconduct are off-limits to the public. Although the court did not specifically address the status of oversight commissions, such panels have closed their hearings and documents to the public.

"Copley Press represents nothing less than complete and total victory for the secrecy lobby in this state," Tom Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, wrote in a letter to state Sen. Gloria Romero in support of her legislation to overturn Copley. He is correct.

Reform is tough going, given that law enforcement unions oppose any public access to records about misbehaving cops. San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno last week turned his bill to overturn Copley into a two-year bill due to a lack of support in his Public Safety Committee, thus stalling it indefinitely. Santa Ana Democrat Jose Solorio failed to support the Leno bill - a huge disappointment. Fortunately, Ms. Romero's Senate legislation passed her committee on a 3-2 party-line vote last week, with Republicans, including Bob Margett of Glendora (who represents a portion of Orange County), voting for government secrecy.

Restoring the law to pre-Copley days does not endanger police officers. Mr. Newton correctly argues that the law had only allowed the public "a right of access to settled official facts generated in a quasi-judicial proceedings at significant taxpayer expense, in which due-process rights of peace officers are protected, about confirmed instances of serious official behavior, even illegal behavior."

Such information is available about discipline of other types of public employees. Any time a member of the public is arrested, detailed information about that person is publicized. It's absurd, and dangerous to public safety, to grant what Mr. Newton calls "the Holy Grail of KGB-like secrecy" to "the only public officials given the right by the public to affect the personal liberty of citizens and even take life."

Ms. Romero's bill remains the best vehicle to fix a situation that is inappropriate in a free society. It deserves widespread, bipartisan support.

A billion here. A billion there. Unfunded liabilities. Assumed rate of return.

The numbers and terms behind the statewide pension debate are so staggering and confusing that it's
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difficult for most Californians to grasp the impact of expensive retirement benefits granted to public employees. It seems even harder to figure out how - or whether - to change the system.

Unlike a 401-k account, a pension places all investment risk on an employer while locking in benefits for employees. In recent years, many local governments enhanced pension benefits for their employees at the same time that pension funds suffered steep investment losses. The result was swelling unfunded liabilities, which means the gap between long-term benefit payouts and the funding streams identified to pay for them.

This year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined legislative leaders in appointing a statewide commission that will fan out to study how local governments are tackling the issue. A report is expected next January. This week, the traveling show comes to Orange County.

"I think we're a good story to tell and a model," Supervisor John Moorlach said of the county's recent changes to retiree medical benefits, which featured a partnership with the county's largest union and trimmed more than $800 million in unfunded liabilities.

Orange County's pension system faces an unfunded liability that crosses the $2 billion mark. Before recent changes in retiree medical benefits, that program faced more than a billion-dollar projected shortfall.

Moorlach - who made pension reform a central tenet of his 2006 campaign - is one of several local leaders who will address the panel, which holds a public meeting at the Orange County Transportation Authority building in Orange at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Two years ago, Schwarzenegger used strong language to describe the state's pension and retiree health benefits for public employees, terming it a system "out of control." He painted a picture in which politicians traded pension benefits for union fundraising dollars and left taxpayers holding an expensive bill.

Schwarzenegger sponsored a ballot initiative to transform the traditional government pension into a 401-k account. Labor leaders returned fire, accusing the governor of manufacturing a crisis and sponsoring a mean-spirited initiative that would take money away from the widows of police officers. Schwarzenegger took a public relations beating on the 401-k measure and withdrew it.

Following those verbal and political fisticuffs, both sides now say they want to focus on facts and solutions.

"Taxpayers should be encouraged that the main parties to this issue have recognized there is a challenge and have pulled up their sleeves," said Nick Berardino, general manager of the county's most politically active union, the 14,000-member Orange County Employees Association.

Berardino and Moorlach are in rare agreement on the central tenet to managing retirement costs. "Both sides have to give," said Berardino, who also will address Thursday's pension panel.

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Easier said than done on an issue that tugs both at the heart and purse strings.

In Orange County, retirees have already threatened lawsuits accusing both union and county leaders of balancing their budgets on retired people's backs.

Moorlach and Berardino face an upcoming battle over Moorlach's aim to replace a pension with a 401-k account for new employees. Moorlach also said he plans to press for either a ballot initiative or ordinance that requires any other pension benefit change to go before a popular vote before it can be authorized.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1666176.php

Statewide panel met in Orange
The Orange County Register

A former state assemblyman said today that he will try again to change public employee benefits by increasing the retirement age and editing benefit formulas.

Keith Richman, a Republican who represented northern Los Angeles County from 2001 to 2007, told a gubernatorial commission meeting in Orange County today that he will unveil his proposed citizen's initiative in the next few weeks.

Along with his California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, Richman said he will ask voters to bar new public safety employees from retiring before age 55, instead of the current 50, and hold other public employees to Social Security age requirements. He said that will help combat the biggest fiscal problem facing California.

"More and more money is going to retirement costs and less money is going for education, health care, public safety and investing in our state's infrastructure," Richman said. As he did with a 2005 plan that ultimately failed, Richman drew the immediate ire of the labor unions. Will Pryor, director of the Los Angeles County Fire Fighters Local 1014, said Richman's "fundamental perceptions are distorted."

"He's mixing up retirement pensions and retirement health care and lumping it all in one liability," Pryor said. "Pensions are well-funded. Retiree health care is expensive and we're trying to find ways to fix retirees' health care."

A 12-member panel established by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in February met in Orange today to address the state's growing problems with funding retired public employees' health care costs. The commission is studying how local governments are tackling the issue and will issue a report in January.

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Some two dozen retirees told the commission, meeting before two packed rooms, that they have a moral obligation to ensure the pensions are not changed and that they continue to be fair.

"We were promised a secure, fair, and what we believe to be a well-earned retirement and we expect that dream to come true," said Jeff van der Sluys Veer an Irvine Police sergeant.

Orange County's $1.4 billion debt in unfunded retiree medical benefits was recently reduced to $598 million after employee unions made significant concessions and the county changed how it funds the plans. The county's pension system still faces an unfunded liability that crosses the $2 billion mark.

Supervisor John Moorlach, another critic of public employee benefits and a member of Richman's group, supports changing the county's defined benefits system to a defined contribution, or 401-k-style accounts.

Moorlach, who addressed the panel today, said he will also support Richman's plan.

"If you want to fix a problem statewide, you have to look at standardization statewide," he said.

Nick Berardino, the general manager of the Orange County Employees Association, which has 17,000 members, argued to keep the current pension and amended retiree medical plan. It is a "disciplined funding plan that has worked," he said

"In the end, it's just plain common sense," Berardino added. "The pension plan is working in Orange County."

Richman's previous plan, which was supported and promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was dropped by the governor after it was discovered that the proposal would have stripped employees of death and disability benefits.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1672018.php