St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office lost two deputies to suicide

1-Month-Old Baby Orphaned After Both Parents Die by Suicide Within Days of Each Other

PEOPLE
By Katie Campione
January 05, 2022

"While it is impossible for us to fully comprehend the private circumstances leading up to this devastating loss, we pray that this tragedy becomes a catalyst for change, a catalyst to help ease the stigma surrounding mental well-being and normalize the conversation about the challenges so many of us face on a regular basis," Mascara concluded his statement.

Clayton Osteen, 24, and Victoria Pacheco were both St. Lucie County Sheriff deputies and shared a one-month-old son named Jayce

The infant son of two Florida sheriff's deputies is orphaned after both of his parents took their own lives.

Clayton Osteen, 24, and Victoria Pacheco both died by suicide in the past week, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said on Tuesday.

Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve, authorities received a call that Osteen had attempted suicide. He was transported to the hospital for his injuries.

On Jan. 2, Osteen's family decided to remove him from life support, the sheriff's office said.

In the wake of her partner's death, Pacheco also died by suicide, the sheriff's department learned on Tuesday. Osteen and Pacheco shared a 1-month-old son named Jayce.

Osteen joined the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office in 2019. In 2020, he was awarded deputy of the year, according to his obituary.
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'Close' Relative to Adopt Baby of Deputies Who Will Be Laid to Rest Together After Tragic Deaths

Osteen — a Florida native — was a former SWAT team member and was named 2020 Deputy of the Year, his obituary said. He also served in the U.S. Marines and as a non-commissioned officer. Loved ones remembered him for his humor and dependability.

Veteran ran into other veterans...in patrol car he crashed into

CHP vehicle rammed; catches fire during high-speed chase

KTVL News 10
by Brian Schnee
June 28th 2019

"Deputy Stewart established rapport with the man by pointing to a miniature Combat Infantryman’s Badge (CIB) he is authorized to wear on his Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) uniform and he related to Mr. Devivo that he too was a combat veteran," Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey told News 10. "Mr. Devivo surrendered to Deputy Stewart and was no longer resistant to on-scene CHP or SCSO personnel. 

Near HORNBROOK, Calif. — A male who had been driving over 130 miles per hour on Interstate 5 in Northern California was taken into custody by law enforcement on Friday afternoon after ramming his vehicle into a CHP patrol vehicle.

According to California Highway Patrol, around 12:30 p.m., officers were advised of a possible reckless vehicle driven by a United States Military Veteran, northbound on I-5 at a high rate of speed and possibly experiencing a mental health crisis.

The driver of the vehicle, 28-year-old Jesse Michael Devivo exceeded 130 mph with an officer in pursuit. According to CHP, Devivo made a U-turn on I-5 just north of the Henley Hornbrook and Copco Road overpass. Devivo was now facing the opposite direction and accelerated towards the northbound lanes. When a CHP officer attempted to block the suspect from re-entering the northbound lanes, Devivo rammed into the CHP patrol car causing it to catch fire. A witness helped extinguish the fire.

Deputy Stewart is a combat infantry veteran and former Army Paratrooper. He served with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. Rob’s partner at the time was Deputy Michael Johnson, a retired U.S. Navy Chief and former Navy diver."

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Deputy sheriff found dead at his desk in apparent suicide

Philadelphia's first openly gay deputy sheriff found dead at his desk in apparent suicide

FOX News
By Anna Hopkins
June 9, 2019

Philadelphia's first openly gay Deputy Sheriff committed suicide at his desk from an apparent gunshot wound on Friday, just before the city's weekend of pride celebrations were set to begin.

Dante Austin, 27, was found dead at his desk at the Philadelphia Sheriff's office. An official cause of death is awaiting confirmation from the local Medical Examiner's office.

Austin was an Army veteran who also served as the department's first LGBTQ community liaison and was known as a "fierce advocate." He was set to be promoted to the position of sergeant next month, according to CBS Philly.

Sheriff Jewell Williams reflected on Austin's service with the Philadelphia Police Department, which he joined in 2013, and called his death “a tragedy for the Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Austin’s family and the local LGBTQ community.”
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Bomb tech responded to Pulse and more...lost everything

Orange deputy found to have fled crash after drinking: 'I gave too much of myself to the Sheriff’s Office’

Orlando Sentinel
By MICHAEL WILLIAMS
MAY 28, 2019

Futch also said he used the Sheriff’s Office Employment Assistance Program to speak with a psychiatrist about the trauma he experienced from his job. He said the allotted six sessions didn’t help; he’s still seeing a therapist and said he’s “absolutely” doing better.

Futch appealed the decision to fire him, but said he has no desire to return to a career in law enforcement. “I lost my marriage, I lost my mind, I gave way too much of myself to the Sheriff’s Office,” he said.

Orange deputy found to have fled crash after drinking: 'I gave too much of myself to the Sheriff’s Office’

This image shows Emiliano Hernandez's car after it was hit by Matthew Futch's OCSO-issued truck (Orange County Sheriff's Office)

An Orange County deputy was fired after an investigation found he got into a car accident after drinking at downtown Orlando bars while he was on call for the agency, then fled and lied to his supervisors about the crash.

Matthew Futch, a 10-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, violated the agency’s policies governing truthfulness, conformance to laws, violation of rules and operating vehicles during and after the Sept. 14 crash in downtown Orlando, the investigation found.

The Orlando Sentinel obtained the report through a public records request.

In a phone interview Friday, Futch admitted drinking prior to the crash, but cited depression, PTSD and personal turmoil as “extenuating circumstances.”

Futch worked as a bomb technician during the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre; he built the explosive breach that ended the hours-long standoff and was involved in the shootout with the gunman, according to an FDLE summary of the attack that claimed 49 lives. He also built the explosive breach used in the June standoff in which four children died and an Orlando police officer was seriously injured.
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31 law enforcement officers have taken their own lives since 1-1-19

Local deputy's death sparks conversation about police suicides

KWTX 10 News
By Rissa Shaw
Feb 12, 2019

So far in 2019, at least 31 law enforcement officers have taken their own lives, including a young McLennan County jail deputy who graduated from the police academy less than a year ago.

WACO, Texas (KWTX) The recent death of a McLennan County deputy is creating awareness about police suicide.

"We deal with quite a few suicides in the county, but it's very different when one of your own people takes their own life," said Sheriff Parnell McNamara. "It's always a very sad thing when you lose one of your own."

For the third year in a row, police suicides have outnumbered line of duty deaths, according Blue H.E.L.P., a non-profit run by active and retired officers advocating for greater mental health resources for law enforcement.

"The heart of an officer is to do what is right by everyone and to do the best job that we can, and sometimes, we need help," said Lydia Alvarado, Chief of Police for the City of Bellmead.

Alvarado, who's been teaching mental health peace officer certification courses since 2003 and critical incident training (CIT) since 2005, is considered a local expert in mental health as it relates to law enforcement.
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Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy committed suicide, widow went to war

Cindy Lannon lost her husband to PTSD. He served his community saving lives and protecting others, but suffering in silence, he did not ask for help he needed to save himself. #BreakTheSilentService

A sheriff’s deputy died by suicide. His widow is on a mission to help others with PTSD

Pioneer Press
Mary Divine
February 10, 2019

Cindy Lannon talks about her late husband, Jerry Lannon, 58, a deputy with the Washington County sheriff’s office. “He has just a really strong faith and he loved studying God’s word. He loved history too,” Lannon said. “I felt that the day Jerry died some of his integrity was tarnished. He didn’t want his life to end that way.”

Cindy Lannon holds a picture of her late husband, Jerry Lannon, in May Township on Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019. Lannon, 58, a deputy with the Washington County sheriff’s office who was diagnosed with depression and PTSD, died by suicide last year. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Cindy Lannon instantly knew something was wrong.

Returning home from a medical appointment the Monday after Thanksgiving, Lannon expected to find her husband’s brown loafers on the front mat.

They weren’t there.

“Your head tells you one thing, but another side of your mind says ‘No, no, no,’ ” Cindy Lannon said. “His truck was in the driveway. I looked around the house, and I went up to our bedroom. The bed wasn’t made — he always made the bed when he got up — and he had taken his cellphone and propped it up on his pillow. It was almost like he was leaving a goodbye note.”

She called her brother Craig Pittman, who lives nearby, and he found Jerry Lannon’s body on the trail that runs behind the couple’s house near Big Carnelian Lake in northern Washington County. The veteran Washington County sheriff’s deputy, SWAT team member and firearms instructor had shot himself in the head. He was 58.

Nationally, law-enforcement officers are more likely to die by suicide than to be killed in the line of duty. At least 159 officers in the U.S. took their own lives in 2018, more than the estimated 145 who died while on the job, according to Blue H.E.L.P., a nonprofit organization that tracks officer suicides. Lannon was one of three officers who died by suicide last year in Minnesota; four died by suicide in Wisconsin.

“It’s a startling trend,” said Sgt. Tim Harris of the Washington County sheriff’s office, who is leading a new mental-health initiative for the department. “We’re very hard on ourselves, and we’re not getting help when we need it. We need to figure out how to change the stigma of seeking help.”

Cindy Lannon, 58, is on a mission to help. She is working to raise awareness about officer suicides and mental illness, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

It’s crucial, she said, that officers seek treatment.
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Why do they still remain clueless about PTSD? It means they survived and there is no shame in that. Considering there are over 7 million other Americans with PTSD after surviving most of the stuff these guys save us from, you'd think they would be the first to understand it...but they do not!

#FightPTSD and #TakeBackYourLife

Unpaid Border Patrol Agent Saved Suicidal Man

Border Patrol agent working without pay helps suicidal man

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jan 24th 2019

NEWPORT, Mich. (AP) — A sheriff's deputy and a Border Patrol agent who's working without pay during the partial government shutdown are being hailed as heroes for saving a suicidal man from a Michigan bridge.

Border Patrol Agent Brian Maitland and Monroe County Deputy Brian Sroka helped save a 64-year-old man from the CN Railroad Bridge this month in Newport, The Detroit News reported.

The two were among the officers responding to a call that a man appeared to be preparing to jump from the bridge. They say that as Sroka spoke to the man, Maitland approached from behind and pulled the man from the edge of the bridge.
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Pinellas County Sheriff's Deputy Committed Suicide

243 first responders commit suicide last year; more than died in the line of duty

FOX 13 News

Elizabeth Fry

December 29, 2018

CLEARWATER, Fla. (FOX 13) - Early Saturday morning, a deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office took his own life in the backyard of his Clearwater home.

Deputy Carlos Felipez, 46, had served on the force since February of 2014. He died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

His death is now the fourth first responder suicide in the Tampa Bay Area since September. The tragedy has brought to light the challenges first responders take home with them each and every day, and the last effect those challenges have.

"They see things that none of us really ever want to see or have to experience. So to know that they're going from call to call to call that can really add up and take such a huge toll on them," said Clara Reynolds, CEO of the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.

It was reported that in 2017, 243 police officers, deputies, and firefighters committed suicide.
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Deputy and family lives lost to murder-suicide

update
He was ‘Officer of the Year.’ Then Hillsborough deputy killed his family and himself

Sheriff Chad Chronister said the deputy killed his daughter and granddaughter at one home and his wife at another. Then Deputy Terry Strawn committed suicide outside Plant City High School.

Deputy kills family then self, despite colleagues' pleas

FOX 13 News
December 19, 2018

Deputies have since identified the victims as Strawn's 54-year-old wife Theresa and the couple's granddaughter, 6-year-old Londyn, who lived with them. Strawn also killed his daughter, 32-year-old Courtney Strawn, at her home.

PLANT CITY, Fla. (FOX 13) - A veteran Hillsborough County deputy killed three family members, including his granddaughter, then broadcast a heart-wrenching radio message to his colleagues before ultimately killing himself, Sheriff Chad Chronister announced this morning.

With "an extremely heavy heart," the sheriff recounted the sequence of events that ultimately ended with the suicide outside Plant City High School.

According to Chronister, it was just after 6:30 a.m. when Deputy Terry Strawn spoke up on the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office main radio channel to say that he had "caused harm to his family," provided details about two crime scene locations, and then said he planned to commit suicide at the school.

As the communications supervisor tried to talk Strawn out of it, three other deputies caught up to him outside the school. They, too, tried to intervene, but failed.

"Unfortunately the deputy took his own life on scene in front of the three deputies," the sheriff said.

If you or a loved one is feeling distressed, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The crisis center provides free and confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week to civilians and veterans. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Or text 741-741.

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#TakeBackYourLife you are worth fighting for!

Deputy took extra steps for disabled woman, a mile's worth

Deputy pushes stranded woman's wheelchair one mile to her home
CBS NEWS
By CAITLIN O'KANE
October 4, 2018

Montanez's partner drove the patrol car behind the wheelchair, and lightly teased the walking deputy. "You can pick it up, you're only going about one mile an hour," Deputy Chapman is heard saying in the video he took of Montanez's good deed. Both Montanez and the elderly woman laughed.

A sheriff's deputy in California is being praised after he pushed an elderly woman in a wheelchair one mile to her home. Lancaster Sheriff's Deputies Chapman and Montanez got a call about a traffic hazard earlier this week. They were told it was a wheelchair in the middle of the road, but when they arrived on the scene, they realized it was much more.

There was a wheelchair on the side of the road, but there was "an elderly female sitting in it," the Lancaster sheriff's office wrote on Facebook.

The woman's motorized wheelchair ran out of power and she was stranded. The deputies offered her a ride, but the wheelchair was too heavy to get into their patrol car and the chair was unable to fold because of the battery pack. The woman didn't want to leave the chair behind, because it is her only means of mobility.

So, instead of leaving both the woman and her wheelchair on the road, Deputy Montanez got out of the patrol car and started walking. He pushed the woman all the way to her home, about one mile away, in his full uniform and boots, the Lancaster Sherrif's officer wrote on Facebook.
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Deputy and wife murder suicide in Land O'Lakes

Deputy's wife texted 'Kirk has lost his mind' before murder-suicide, friend says
Tampa Bay Times
Howard Altman
September 24, 2018

LAND O’LAKES — Samantha Keithley sent a series of disturbing text messages late Sunday, complaining about her husband to a longtime friend.

A Hillsborough County deputy fatally shot his wife before turning the gun on himself in the 17000 block of Terrazzo Way in Land O'Lakes on Sept. 24, 2018. [TONY MARRERO | Times]

“Kirk has lost his mind Kristin,” she wrote in one text to friend Kristin Kellin. “He’s literally losing it. He’s been harassing me for the last 6 hours and I’ve asked him repeatedly to just leave me alone because I’m sick.”

The wife also wrote that she had tossed her ring outside, a reference to a wedding ring.

That was 11:50 p.m. The texts were not seen for hours. Sometime near midnight, authorities say, Samantha Keithley, 33, was fatally shot by her husband, Kirk Keithley, a 39-year-old Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy. He then turned the gun on himself and died by suicide.

“She was an amazing mother and an amazing friend and amazing wife,” Kellin said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times. “This is horrible.”

Pasco County deputies were called to the home at 17364 Terrazzo Way when a 14-year-old boy ran from the house and alerted 911 after hearing an argument and a gunshot, Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said at an early morning news conference.

Once deputies arrived, they found the body of a woman, Nocco said. They went upstairs and found three other children safe.Then deputies found the husband in another room, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a preliminary investigation.

“Sam was part of our Hard Rock family for over 10 years,” he said. “She was truly loved by all who knew her. Our focus now is to support each other as we mourn this devastating loss. We are broken-hearted.”

Kirk Keithley was hired by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in 2009 and worked as a patrol deputy in the northeast area of the county. He had prior experience at the St. Petersburg Police Department.

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More to story after arrest of Deputy for bank robbery

"A former Davidson County deputy accused of bank robbery worked security there prior to robbery" on Salisbury Post headline may begin the judgement of this man, but there is so much more to the story.

"Jeffrey Dean Athey, 51, entered the F and M Bank at 418 W. Main St. about 3:35 p.m. on Feb. 6 and showed a Glock 41 semi-automatic handgun. He requested $1,000 and then left the bank."

He is accused of robbing the bank he worked for. Think about that one. Top that off with he only wanted $1,000 and knew exactly what the penalty would be for that. Why would he choose to do it there?

After hearing of the news, Davidson County Sheriff David Grice terminated Athey the same afternoon. He’s worked for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office for a number of years, left to work for the private military company formerly known as Blackwater, and then returned to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office.

He not only joined law enforcement, he worked for a defense contractor.

Court documents show Athey was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He recently married and lived with his wife and her two children.

Was this a scream for help? He had 2 jobs plus a new family. If this was not a man who was willing to risk his life, but change it for the better as well, it would be easy to just pass it off as a good guy gone bad. Taken everything into consideration, now we know there is so much more to this story.

Two Wyandotte County Sheriff's Deputies Killed

Second sheriff's deputy dies following shooting in Kansas
CBS News
June 16, 2018

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A second sheriff's deputy has died after being shot while an inmate was being transported to a Kansas City courthouse. Kansas City, Kansas, police confirmed that 44-year-old Deputy Theresa King died early Saturday from injuries suffered when an inmate overpowered the two deputies.

The shooting happened Friday as an unidentified inmate was being moved. Police said it is possible that King and the other slain deputy, 35-year-old Patrick Rohrer, were shot with their own firearm, but police gave no other details.

Investigators said the inmate may have grabbed a weapon from one of the deputies during a struggle after he got out of a van transporting him late Friday morning. The inmate was shackled and in handcuffs, CBS affiliate KCTV reported.

Both officers were with the Wyandotte County Sheriff's Department. King had 13 years of service and Rohrer had been with the department for seven years.
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Homeless Vietnam Veteran Found Dead

UPDATE

CORONER OFFERS TO HELP PAY FOR BURIAL OF HOMELESS VETERAN
The body of 69-year-old Dennis Reidy was found Tuesday in the corner of a park in Lexington. Coroner Margaret Fisher tells WYFF-TV that Reidy was found in "a type of garage storage box" wearing a South Carolina Gamecocks jacket.

Homeless vet found dead in woods was USC grad, former deputy, and Vietnam vet
FOX 8 News
By Chad Mills
January 25th 2018

LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC (WIS)
It’s a picture that tells a story of loneliness, hopelessness, despair. In the quiet corner of a Lexington park is the place where a homeless veteran lived and died.

A 15-year-old discovered the body of 69-year-old Dennis E. Reidy there on Tuesday.

“Lying in, basically, a type of garage storage box,” said Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher.

It’s a case that brings tears to Fisher’s eyes. Since Tuesday, she’s discovered Reidy was a Vietnam War veteran, a Richland County deputy from 1978 to 1990, and a University of South Carolina grad.

“He was found on the day that he passed wearing a South Carolina Gamecock jacket, and it just broke my heart,” Fisher said, her voice trembling. “When you give up your life and your family and everything that you have to go out and serve your country, they deserve everything that they need when they get back. They deserve health care. They deserve shelter. They deserve everything that we can do for them as a country because they went out and protected us.”

But what’s more unforgettable to Fisher is where he was found. His body was found on Chariot Street, which is just a short walk from a shelter for homeless veterans where James Wardlaw, who goes by J.W., is outreach manager.
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Jacksonville Veteran Shot on Wonderwood Bridge

Police officer shoots, injures armed veteran after rampage

Friday's police-involved shooting is 9th this year in Jacksonville

News4JAX

Ethan Calloway

Corley Peel

Allyson Henning

Court records show Smith was arrested on Sept. 19 on two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and one count of domestic battery. On Oct. 17, he was referred to a pretrial intervention program for military veterans. He was out on bond Friday but was due to be back in court later this month. 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Jacksonville Sheriff's Office officer shot and injured an armed veteran who has had previous run-ins with law enforcement, after a crash Friday afternoon on the Wonderwood Bridge in the Mayport area, authorities said.

Steven Smith, 32, is expected to survive after he was shot twice by Officer A. Will, Assistant Chief Scott Dingee announced at a Friday evening news briefing. 

At 4:41 p.m., two 911 calls came in about hit-and-run incidents on Nesting Eagles Way, where residents said a man was driving recklessly -- hitting mailboxes, poles and trees, Dingee said.

Two minutes later, Dingee said, a third 911 caller reported a mentally ill man who was posing a threat to the caller's relative on nearby Blue Eagle Way East near Girvin Road in East Arlington.

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Pasco Deputies Tried To Change End of Air Force Veteran's Life

Do not blame police for trying to change the way an Air Force veteran's life ended. Blame all of us because they tried to taser him and they also used pepper spray.

Tampa Air Force veteran, 34, dies after rampage, struggle with Pasco deputies
Tampa Bay Times
Dan Sullivan, Times Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 2016

A deputy sprayed Sellinger with pepper spray, but that also had no effect, officials said. As the struggle continued, a deputy used a Taser a second time, knocking Sellinger to the ground.

LAND O'LAKES — An Air Force veteran who had been reported missing from Tampa died Thursday after a rampage a day earlier in Pasco County, where authorities say he assaulted a 70-year-old motorcyclist before a violent struggle with sheriff's deputies.

John Sellinger, 34, endured pepper spray and shocks from a Taser as he fought with deputies. After he was detained, he went into "distress," according to Pasco County sheriff's officials. Despite lifesaving efforts, he later died at a local hospital.

His exact cause of death was not immediately clear. It capped a bizarre chain of events that began Wednesday, when authorities received reports of several hit-and-run accidents in Hillsborough County.

Sellinger's wife, Laura, had reported him missing that day. He lived in a Seminole Heights house recently donated to his wife by the Gramatica Family Foundation. Both Sellingers had served in the Air Force. An improvised explosive device had detonated near Laura Sellinger in Iraq in 2006, causing a severe brain injury.

Standing outside the home Friday night, Laura Sellinger declined to comment publicly. But on Thursday, she posted a message to the social networking website LinkedIn.

"My husband died today, I wish I could make that up," she wrote. "I wish I could sit here today and tell you a different story, a tale that ends in a happier ending but this one is tragic."
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Deputy Sheriff: 'I Felt Like a Failure' Stigma of PTSD

Deputy Sheriff: 'I Felt Like a Failure'
WEBMD
By Katherine Kam, Reviewed by Melinda Ratini, DO, MS
November 10, 2016

Like soldiers, cops prize a show of toughness, and acknowledging PTSD is hard. “It takes a lot for cops to talk about their internal feelings because we don’t want to be judged or we’re afraid our gun will be taken away from us. We may lose our job,” DiBona says. “I held all that in, and I told very few people what was going on.”

Nov. 10, 2016 -- In 31 years of police work, Sgt. Mark DiBona has witnessed a torrent of human tragedy. But it took a child’s death a decade ago to crush his spirit.

DiBona was sitting in his police cruiser at 3 a.m. when a mother drove up and screamed that her 6-month-old son had stopped breathing. Firefighters at a nearby station were out on a call, so DiBona tried to revive him with CPR. But the baby died from sudden infant death syndrome.

“I felt worthless that I could not save the baby through my training, and I tried my hardest,” he says.

After he attended the baby’s funeral, the nightmares started.

The baby appeared in terrifying dreams: in his mailbox, at the dinner table with him and his wife, in the passenger seat of the police car.

In one nightmare, the doorbell rang and DiBona answered it, startled to find the baby lying on his doorstep. “He was lifeless,” DiBona says. “I started doing CPR again, and I woke up in a cold sweat, yelling and screaming, just feeling bad that I couldn’t save the baby.”

During the day, DiBona was tormented by intrusive thoughts, as well as guilt and shame -- negative emotions that kept intensifying. He isolated himself from other officers.
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Baton Rouge Lost 3 In The Line of Duty

Baton Rouge shooting: 3 officers dead; shooter was Missouri man, sources say
CNN
By Steve Visser
July 17, 2016

(CNN)The shooter who killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday was a Missouri man who launched a deadly rampage on his 29th birthday, police sources said.

Gavin Long, who was born on July 17, 1987, was the man who gunned down officers before he was killed in a gunbattle with other officers responding to the shootings.

Two Baton Rouge police officers -- ages 41 and 49 -- died, said Police Chief Carl Dabadie. The gunman also killed a 45-year-old sheriff's deputy and critically wounded a 41-year-old deputy who is "fighting for his life," said East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux.

Another wounded deputy and police officer have non-life-threatening wounds, law officers said.
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Sheriff Deputies Train as Chaplains

Chaplains’ care also goes to deputies
Course for ‘a ministry of presence’ is the first of its kind in Bexar County
San Antonio Express News
By Elaine Ayala
July 16, 2016

For the first time in Bexar County, 20 volunteer chaplains have received training to care and counsel sheriff’s deputies in what’s described as “a ministry of presence.”

Bexar County Sheriff's Office volunteer chaplain Bette Huereca, right, speaks with Sheriff Deputy Michelle Grabowski.

The Ecumenical Center created the Chaplains for Justice Training Program, an intensive 14-week course accredited by the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. It’s considered a rarity in law enforcement, and the training is a first here.

Faith leaders and ministers long have worked in the county’s jail system, focused on the spiritual needs of inmates. Less attention has gone to the emotional well-being of law enforcement officers, though there is a growing recognition of its importance, most recently after the killings of five Dallas officers by a sniper during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest.

The Sheriff’s Office began recruiting volunteer chaplains in 2013, spurred by the suicide of a detention officer that year. Its 14 chaplains received the training,and several others who graduated with them could help bolster their numbers, officials said. The county has a separate set of chaplains who minister to inmates.
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Florida Army Vet and former Sheriff’s Deputy Comes Out of Coma---Wanted Taco Bell

This Week in Taco Bell: Army vet miraculously wakes from 48-day coma and demands Taco Bell
USA Today
For The Win
By: Ted Berg
May 12, 2016

He struggled to speak — and still struggles to speak — due to the lingering effects of intubation and a tracheotomy, but as soon as he could form sounds into words, he made a request. “I want Taco Bell,”

This Week in Taco Bell is For the Win’s weekly roundup of Taco Bell news and the internet’s foremost source of aggregated Taco Bell content.

In February, Jake Booth, a 35-year-old Army vet and former Sheriff’s deputy in Collier County, Fla., came down with a case of bronchitis. Antibiotics helped, but after Booth quit taking his pills a few days early, the bronchitis turned into double pnemonia. While hospitalized for treatment, Booth suffered a heart attack and fell into a coma. He had to be airlifted to Tampa General Hospital for more extensive treatment. His family did not know if he would ever wake up, or how much damage his brain endured from a loss of oxygen.

It would be 22 more days before Booth could eat solid food, a total of 70 days between real meals. But just last week, one day after doctors cleared him to eat, Jake got his wish in the form of 8 1/2 Crunchy Tacos. The photo, shared by Tyler Chronister — the same friend at Booth’s bedside when he made the Taco Bell request — is one of the most beautiful, redeeming, joyful images that will ever grace these pages:
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