|
How anyone can ask, “Why are police officers leaving public service for private jobs?” with a straight face is hard to imagine. The job that once guaranteed steady work, measly pay, a secure pension and an opportunity to help one’s fellow man makes no such promises these days. If you want to know how far down the totem pole cops have fallen, consider the situation in McCurtain, Oklahoma. The cops are wearing hand-me-downs from other cops.
Bella Vista, Arkansas police officers recently gave the shirts off their backs to another law enforcement agency – literally. They also gave them their pants, radios, a light bar, and gun belts.
Bella Vista officers recently raised $9,000 from businesses and individuals in the area to buy new uniforms. So they wanted to find a police department that needed their old ones. “I can’t see hanging on to something we can’t use,” Police Chief Jim Wozniak told the Morning News.
Detective Ed Williams was in charge of finding another law enforcement agency that needed uniforms, so he started calling people he knew. One person he contacted was Officer Danny Hoover in Vian, Oklahoma, who told him about a police force in McCurtain that was in desperate need of almost everything. Williams and Wozniak visited McCurtain to meet the police chief, Janet Tatum-Biggs, and give her the uniforms and some other gear.
“I’m in awe,” Tatum-Biggs told reporters from the News. “These people have given us so much. My guys are already wearing the leather gear.” McCurtain police also got a cage with bars that separates the back seat from the front seat in their police cars and is standard issue for larger agencies.
The Bella Vista cops also donated some Beanie Babies to the McCurtain force. After her visit to Bella Vista, Chief Tatum-Biggs had to go back to McCurtain to interview an 11-year-old girl who had been raped. The chief was going to give the girl one of the Beanie Babies to help her through the process. But the donated light bar she received was was off-limits.
The chief said she was putting that on her car before anyone else had a chance to take it. Her department has so little because McCurtain – with between 800 and 1,000 people, few businesses and almost nothing in the way of tax revenue – is the poorest town in Haskell County. The county itself ranks in the bottom ten of the poorest counties in the state, she said.
“I’m just so grateful,” she said, referring to the gifts from the Bella Vista Police Department. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
It makes me wonder how hard it would be for one or more of the national police organization to come up with a program to facilitate such sharing on an ongoing basis. I'm sure there is a lot of unused equipment lying around the country that would be very appreciated by departments like McCurtain which have very few resources.