Police Week 2011 Ride - Join Today

If you're planning on attending Police Week 2011 and have an interest in cycling then you must consider riding for Law Enforcement United (LEU).

LEU is made up of over 400 law enforcement officers from across the country. These riders, and their support personnel, converge on Chesapeake, Va., to kick off their three day, 250 mile ride that ends at the Pentagon Memorial just outside of Washington, DC. Meeting them at the memorial are hundreds of survivors of fallen law enforcement officers who are in town for the essential Concerns of Police Survivors grief seminars, Candlelight Vigil, and other memorial events that occur throughout the week.

Why must you ride?

100% of the money you and other LEU riders raise is donated to Concerns of Police Survivors and the ODMP. Last year, following their inaugural ride, LEU was able to donate $100,000 to COPS and $20,000 to ODMP. These donations are critical for the ability of both organizations to provide essential services to survivors and law enforcement officers who have been affected by a line of duty death. Your daily visits to the ODMP is made possible because of LEU!

So, don't just come to Police Week. Participate in Police Week. Learn more about LEU and make that commitment to join today.

21 Shades of Blue, Brown and Green

Yesterday's article about the sacrifices made by airport police officers and hospital police officers elicited an amazing amount of positive feedback from LEOs around the country. The feedback proved one thing: No matter the color of the uniform, or the wording on the badge, cops have each other's backs. Like with any family there's a little infighting, but when push comes to shove on the streets, every cop out there knows they can count on their brothers and sisters, whether it be across jurisdictional lines, state borders, or international boundaries.

Much of the feedback that was posted to the ODMP's Facebook page pointed out additional types of specialized agencies that are often overlooked, such as campus police, transit police, housing police, etc. Future articles that will appear here on the ODMP Blog will discuss the contributions and sacrifices made by officers in each of these fields.

In preparation for those articles, I thought it would be helpful to let visitors know how the ODMP classifies agencies. We came up with classification system only for statistical purposes, so we could answer common questions, such as "how many corrections officers have been killed in the line of duty?" We've done our best to fit every type of agency out there into one of 21 different classifications. But at the end of the day, whether a fallen officer wore the traditional blue uniform of a city cop, the standard brown of a deputy sheriff, or conservation green, we treat them with the equal amount of respect and honor that they so rightfully deserve.

As of October 26, 2010, here's the number of officers who have fallen in the 21 different categories of law enforcement:

Airport, Harbor, Port, Railroad & Transit:	265
Border Protection, Customs & Immigration:	219
Capitol Police & Asset Protection:	26
Code Enforcement:	1
Commercial Vehicle Enforcement:	11
Controlled Substances Law Enforcement:	148
Corrections, Probation & Parole:	573
Court Services Law Enforcement:	35
Criminal Investigative Agencies:	537
Educational Institutions Law Enforcement:	44
Elected Constable Law Enforcement:	262
Health & Hospital Law Enforcement:	11
Highway Patrol & State Police:	1,633
Housing Law Enforcement:	32
Military & Department of Defense Law Enforcement:	69
Natural Resources & Wildlife Law Enforcement:	284
Parks, Recreation & Marine Law Enforcement:	138
Police (Municipal & County):	11,720
Sheriff (Municipal & County):	4,057
Tax & Revenue Enforcement:	144
Tribal Law Enforcement:	91

Yes, Airport and Hospital Police Are 'Real' Cops

In 1974, the FAA Police, which
later became the MWAA Police
was the first airport
agency to lose an officer
in the line of duty.

Last night I had the duty of picking my wife up from Dulles International Airport. After the second loop past the arrivals pickup area I stopped my car for a few minutes to wait for her and took the opportunity, while I was stopped in the "no waiting" area of course, to check my email and the latest correspondence from the ODMP contact form. I was amazed at the coincidence to see this question from an airport police officer in Ohio:

Do you consider airport or hospital police if they are killed in the line of duty?

No sooner had I finished reading the question then I was shooed away from the no waiting area by a Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) PD police officer.

The answer to the above question is "yes." Any law enforcement officer in America who is killed in the line of duty is eligible to be included on the Officer Down Memorial Page. It doesn't matter if they work for a municipal, state, federal, or specialized agency: Airports, hospitals, harbors, railroads, etc. To the ODMP, a police officer is a police officer is a police officer. We make no distinction on a police officer's eligibility based on the type of agency they work for.

Like the PSOB program, Concerns of Police Survivors, the National Memorial, and other national organizations, the ODMP does have a criteria for inclusion that we adhere to when making determinations on when a potential line of duty death is eligible, but that mostly revolves around the circumstance of the death rather than the type of agency (with very few exceptions). To make a long story short, if a law enforcement officer has some sort of arrest authority and is killed/dies as a result of having that authority then he/she will probably be eligible to be included on the ODMP.

With that, I'd like to specifically honor those airport and hospital police officers who have been killed in the line of duty:

Airport Police Officers Killed in the Line of Duty

Private William Edward Connor	United States Department of Transportation - Federal Aviation Administration Police, US	1974-01-12
Officer George Neal Ramsburg	Maryland Aviation Administration Police Department, MD	1974-02-22
Police Officer Garland L. Garrison	Will Rogers Airport Police Department, OK	1979-09-19
Officer James Douglas Bossen	Indianapolis International Airport Police Department, IN	1982-02-05
Officer William Moss	Houston Airport Police Department, TX	1983-09-12
Officer Kenneth Stanley Baldwin	Okaloosa County Airport Police Department, FL	1987-09-11
Officer Michael Capparelli	Chicago Department of Aviation Police, IL	1992-03-27
Corporal Richard David Barreda	Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport Police Department, TX	1997-02-14
Officer John Michael Richardson	Nashville International Airport Police, TN	1999-04-29
Chief of Safety John Ross Juneau	Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Police Department, GA	2003-05-02
Sergeant Michael Allen Scarbrough	Wayne County Airport Authority Police Department, MI	2005-02-09
Police Officer Tommy Edward Scott	Los Angeles World Airports Police Department, CA	2005-04-29

Hospital Police Officers Killed in the Line of Duty

Quarantine Guard Ira Trueman Hill	United States Department of Health and Human Services - Public Health Service, US	1919-06-01
Police Officer Marvin C. Bland	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	1985-09-06
Police Officer Mark S. Decker	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	1986-01-31
Police Officer Leonard B. Wilcox	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	1986-01-31
Police Officer Ronald Hearn	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	1988-07-25
Officer Harry Cantave	New York City Health and Hospital Police Department, NY	1990-08-22
Police Officer Garry A. Ross	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	1990-12-24
Captain James Rodriguez	New York City Health and Hospital Police Department, NY	1992-03-19
Police Officer Horst Harold Woods	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	1996-01-10
Sergeant James C. Low	New York City Health and Hospital Police Department, NY	1999-02-01
Police Officer Jose Oscar Rodriguez-Reyes	United States Department of Veterans Affairs Police, US	2002-04-24
Officer Monte Ruby	CoxHealth Department of Public Safety, MO	2008-08-06

Did we fail to list any officers in the lists above? If so, fill out the comment form below with their names and agencies.