12/26/15: When Mother Nature Roared Into Town

Within hours of the devastating tornadoes that ripped through the Garland/Rowlett areas before 7 p.m. December 26 killing 11 the day after Christmas, everyone it seemed came out of the woodwork, so to speak, to help the hundreds in need.

Social media was on fire the day after with fascinating yet frightening images and youtube videos of the wedged mile long monster whose image in the darkness could only be seen by the lightning and blue electrical explosions along interstate 30 as it made its way from the I-90/George Bush turnpike where eight people lost their lives.

That news alone brought to mind what former Fox 4 News meteorologist Ron Jackson, whose weather class I took at Eastfield College years ago, said about how it was going to be a matter of time before a twister hits the interstate during rush hour traffic.

Normally I lose my patience searching for the remote to hit the exit button the minute I see an emergency broadcast that AT&T’s service provides on television that comes with that annoyingly loud siren that causes my dog to go crazy and interferes with the program I’m watching. Then the sirens in Mesquite started blaring and I switched to WFAA channel 8 to hear the latest weather reports.

My sister and her family were in Mesquite at El Fenix when her cellphone erupted with text messages and phone calls about the twister in Rowlett. If they had left the restaurant ten minutes earlier they would have run right into the storm as it formed on I-90.

“We kept getting texts saying it was touching down in Rowlett so we stayed in Mesquite until it passed,” said Marisa Stumpo Perry. “When we drove back to Rowlett, the overpass from 30 to George bush had whole tree trunks. We had to drive around and there was a large dead animal on the overpass. Chad's cousin Ryan lives just across Dalrock about a mile from us, and his house is gone. And the neighborhood where Jake’s school is got leveled. But his school is okay. Our power finally came back on around midnight. But this whole area at Dalrock and 66 is a mess.”

Along with the images of the storm came the many heartbreaking posts and stories. Among them were pictures of missing pets within the tornado-ravaged areas that were posted on social media.

“This is Bear Gus. He is a male Rhodesian ridgeback, about 6-7 months old. They live in Rowlett just over the 66 bridge from Rockwall. They lost him during the tornado. If anyone finds him please let me know,” said one post.

Another post said, “Please help me find her! Her name is Lilah. She is an all brown lab/pit, she's wearing a blue bandana that has snow flakes and snowman. She does not have a collar but is chipped. She was last seen on Woodside Road in Rowlett.”

The pictures showing partial homes still standing or are completely gone off their foundations lying in piles of wood and rubble, amongst smashed vehicles and trees that once sprouted leaves leave the viewer with just a glimpse of how devastating the storm was. You have to see the destruction in person.

Rowlett resident Francicso Reyna who posted pictures of wrecked houses on his block on Facebook said though his home only suffered minor damage to his roof, others on his street will have to completely start over.

“My poor neighborhood is just devastated,” Reyna wrote.

Worrying about one’s own personal possessions no longer mattered as citizens, just like they did helping victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, donated whatever they had lying around the house from old clothes, buying toys, food and water to making monetary donations to the Red Cross. Local restaurants offered free meals to residents affected by the storm. People volunteered their time at various churches to help with donations.

DCCCD Chancellor Joe May, in an email to the Dallas County Community College District on Dec. 28 asking if anyone knows of a fellow employee or student affected by the tornadoes to report it to their college’s leadership with the subject line, “Need help”, wrote “it has been said that the worst of times brings out the best in people.”

How north Texans responded in the hours after the disaster shows that. WFAA news anchor John McCaa wrote on December 29 how the city of Garland showed resilience in the tornado aftermath, but his final comment applies to how the entire Lone Star State responded.

“It says something about the city and its people. Something that, at this year's end, should make us proud to know they're part of the human fabric that makes up North Texas.”

©12/30/15

Appreciation: Remembering the fallen in law enforcement

I’ve got a lump in my throat right now.

I find it hard as I write this column not to shed tears for the police officers across the country who died in the line of duty this year, which as of this writing, that number stands at 116 according to the Officer Down Memorial Page at odmp.org. Of the 116, 36 of those died by gunfire. The worst month this year for law enforcement was in May with 17 lost.

In every online article I read about these officers and countless others, I went away learning a little about their personal lives.

New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton called Officer Brian Moore, 25, who was shot and killed on May 2 while questioning an individual, “a hero of the city, a guardian at the gate of the city and now a guardian angel in Heaven.”

“He (Moore) dreamed of getting the bad guys off the street. He wanted to make a difference,” Bratton said.

Moore, who was a devoted Baltimore Orioles baseball fan and came from a family of police officers, loved acting out songs on the radio videotaping himself for his friends.

NYPD chaplain Robert Romano was quoted by CNN saying "We might ask ourselves: 'Where was God last Saturday?' I could tell you he was in a young man named Brian who accepted a call, a vocation. Just like we priests have a vocation, Brian had a vocation. A vocation to be a peacemaker and to be a hero. Brian, like so many of his sisters and brothers, ran always into the trouble, not away from it."

Officer Benjamin Joseph Deen, 34, who leaves behind wife, Robin, and two children, Melah, 12 and Walker, 9, was named Hattiesburg Police Department Officer of the Year in 2012 for rescuing a man from a burning building, according to a spokesperson for the Deen family according to the Los Angeles Times.

“The two things that really summed him up as far as a person, he (Deen) didn’t go anywhere without his family, ever,” said the spokesperson who asked not to be identified. “The day before he went on shift and passed away, he had just been out with his son – they were out target shooting with each other – he was boasting, he was proud of his son. ... He was honestly a friend to everyone he met, he loved serving his community, he loved being a cop.”

Officer Liqouri Tate, 25, also of the Hattiesburg Police Department, couldn’t contain his excitement last June on Facebook upon graduating from the police academy.

"I am now a Police Officer. I would like to thank God, the Police Academy, the Police Department, my family, friends, and love ones," Tate wrote on social media, who worked at auto parts stores for years before becoming an officer according to his father, Ronald.

“He had this enthusiasm, this fire in his soul,” Tate’s father told CNN who said that didn’t mean he didn’t realize he was putting his life danger being a police officer. "He really knew the risk. But I think my son just thought people are generally good, and that's just the way he was. He thought people are generally good people, so let's treat them all with dignity."

Officers Deen and Tate were shot and killed May 9 during a traffic stop on a vehicle occupied by three suspects.

During her time off, Detective Kerrie Orozco, 29, a seven-year veteran of the Omaha Police Department, coached baseball at the North Omaha Boys and Girls Club, volunteered with Special Olympics and was a Girl Scout Leader according to a Facebook page set up by the Omaha Police Department.

She was one day away from taking maternity leave to care for her newborn daughter, Olivia Ruth, born on Feb. 27 this year, when she was shot and killed May 20 when she and fellow officers of the Metro Area Fugitive Task Force attempted to serve a warrant on a suspect wanted in a September 2014 shooting. In addition to her daughter, Orozco is survived by her husband, Hector, and two step children, Natalie and Santiago.

“She (Kerrie) got people to look past the fact that she was a police officer,” said Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer. “I see her legacy as that of breaking down barriers.”

Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth, 47, of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Texas recently bought Captain America T-shirts for himself and his 5-year-old son, Ryan, in August. Both shirts were still unworn at the time Goforth was ambushed while pumping gas in his patrol car in Cypress on Aug. 28.

In a story by CNN, Ryan wore his shirt underneath his suit jacket at his father’s funeral. Goforth was also buried in his T-shirt as well underneath his uniform. The story, which got national attention started a Facebook campaign encouraging people to wear Captain America T-shirts to honor Goforth and his son. Sept. 11 was the date set for Goforth’s Captain America Day.

“Today, we remember both the attack on America & our fallen brother,” was among the tweets posted by #UnitedWeGoforth.

In an open letter, Goforth’s wife, Kathleen, wrote describing her husband as “an incredibly intricate blend of toughness and gentility. He was loyal…fiercely so. And he was ethical; the right thing to do is what guided his internal compass. I admired this quality, perhaps, the most. For that is what made Darren good. And he was good. So, if people want to know what kind of man he was… This is it. He was who you wanted for a friend, a colleague, and a neighbor.”

The latest casualty to die in the line of duty was Officer Garrett Swasey, 44, of Colorado Springs, on Nov. 27. Swasey was among three killed when a gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic ten miles from the University of Colorado Springs where he worked.

“He (Swasey) might not be in alignment with the abortion industry, but he’d be willing to go in and lay down his life for those people, and that’s just the testimony to me of the kind of man that he is. Not just courageous, but Christlike,” said Swasey’s church co-pastor Scott Dontanville where Swasey was an elder at Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs. “He would want us to forgive this man (the gunman) and to go on with our lives.”

Before becoming a police officer, Swasey, who leaves behind wife, Rachel, daughter Faith, 6, and Elijah, 11, trained for six years at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in the 1990s and was the 1992 junior ice dance champion who teamed with Christine Fowler-Binder in their second year together according to U.S. Figure Skating.

"Garrett was selfless, always there to help me, always my wingman," Fowler-Binder said. "He was my brother and my partner. I could always count on him.”

Two-time Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan spoke of her childhood years with Swasey.

"We were together a lot as children," Kerrigan told the Boston Herald. "I would ride my bike to his house and we'd hang out at the pool. We were together all the time, whether skating or not. I called him 'Ugh'; he called me 'Yuck.' We were always teasing each other like a brother and sister."

These are the individuals and countless others in law enforcement whose tales of heroism and good deeds should be reported about on a daily basis instead of the stories of officers indicted in wrongful death cases against the African-American community that spawned riots, and who are often times acquitted or rightfully charged and sentenced.

I meant what I said when I wrote in a column a few weeks ago about how there are three times more good officers than bad. If you don’t want to take my word for it, then heed the words, for example, of what Republican Congressman Peter King said at Moore’s funeral last May of how unfortunate it is that it takes such tragedies to reminds us all what outstanding jobs law enforcement do.

“How they put their lives on the line day in and day out for us, and too often they’re slandered by the media and politicians,” King said.

Or what Commissioner Bratton said at Moore’s funeral last May.

“For police officers across the country, we’re increasingly bearing the brunt of loud criticism. We cannot be defined by that criticism,” Bratton said. “Because what is lost in the shouting and the rhetoric is the context of what we do. A handful of recent incidents, fewer than a dozen, have wrongfully come to define the hundreds of millions of interactions cops have every year.”

People should do what Omaha Police Chief Schmaderer said at Detective Orozco’s funeral.

“If you have a hard time resonating with the police, think of Kerrie because she resonates with everyone. For her legacy the next time you see an Omaha police officer, maybe they’re eating dinner, maybe they’re in your rearview mirror, so after you check your speedometer, I want you to look back. I want you to look back past the cruiser. Look past this uniform. Look past the badge and see Kerrie, see a little bit of Kerrie in that officer because there is a little bit of Kerrie in all of us. There are a lot of police officers that do a lot of good that give back to the community in so many ways.”

©12/2/15