Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 19, 1995 TAG: 9501190076
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The department now has seven instructors in its ranks who hold training sessions twice a month, he told Town Council. A number of officers have attended specialized schools to learn about handling high-risk situations. And a special response team, made up of the Pulaski and Dublin departments and Pulaski County Sheriff's Office, has been formed to react to emergencies.
Council members had asked for a report on the department's readiness after Officer John Anthony Goad sustained stab wounds on the head and arm when police responded to a call about a break-in in December. Kevin Bradley May, 29, faces malicious wounding and other charges in the incident.
The stabbing came a week after the death of Wythe County Deputy Cliff Dicker, who was shot while serving detention papers on a 15-year-old boy, and after last September's death of Christiansburg Officer Terry Griffith, who was killed in a struggle with a shoplifting suspect.
``When these things happen, especially this close to home, it brings about some concerns,'' Cooley said, and police could face similar incidents anytime. ``It's just the nature of the business.''
Goad is fully recovered and back on the job, but another officer, Sgt. E.T. Montgomery, later found that he sustained torn ligaments in the struggle with May and has one arm in a cast.
Cooley said the department, where he has been chief for six months, critiqued the incident in detail and found that the officers involved acted responsibly and used restraint. He said continued training is the best way to be prepared for such situations.
Law enforcement personnel not only face potential violence daily but are exposed to people with communicable diseases like AIDS or hepatitis, and to hazardous materials, Cooley said. ``Sometimes you wish you had a space suit, some of the places you have to go into.''
Police also have jobs where practically none of the people they must deal with want to see them. ``These guys are verbally abused daily ... and then they have to go back to their families and act like normal people,'' he said.
More police officers die from suicide than the violent situations they face, he said. People in the profession also face high divorce and hypertension rates. ``We demand a lot from these people,'' he said.
The Pulaski department has lost 14 people in the last four years to surrounding law enforcement agencies that can offer better pay and benefits, Cooley said. He questioned whether it is cost effective to spend a year training an officer only to lose that person.
The most major problems in Pulaski include domestic violence and drunken driving, Cooley reported. Pulaski has had no murders since 1992, no robberies last year, and all but about five of its 18 burglaries in 1994 stemmed from domestic situations.
Cooley said Pulaski police often go beyond the call of duty. He recalled an officer who transported ``Santa Claus'' during Christmas to visit with kids who otherwise would have had little Christmas cheer, and a food drive run by department personnel.
``They need to know that someone cares about them,'' he said.
by CNB