WHAT IT’S LIKE BEING a NY POLICE OFFICER  
 

Sent in by an NYCPD Officer.  Hi All,   Count your blessings that you are retired   Stay safe!  Harvey

I pray that our brother and sister officers and their families stay safe.  Unfortunately, we know we are going to lose more.  Please share for those that don’t use FB.   It is a grim eye opening experience of what they are living:

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You start the tour like any other. Standing roll call waiting for your assignment. You look to your left and right and realize today that even more of your co workers are not here . More friends out with the sickness. You think to yourself , they are strong. they’ll be ok. You listen to the sergeant give out assignments. Half of the platoon is being assigned to relieve the earlier tour who are taking reports for DOA (dead on arrival). This is common during tour change now as it’s been taking the Medical examiner anywhere from 6-10 hours to come to collect the bodies.  It used to be a 1-2 hour wait. Now it’s you’re whole tour.

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 In my patrol area we used to get maybe 1 DOA a month during midnight tour. Now we get 5-8 every night. You head out for patrol with your partner. The streets are eerily quiet. You make your normal rounds and find a place to park and wait. Your job phone goes off with notification after notification of ambulance calls for people with corona virus. Most of them start the same, person with cough , fever , tested positive or symptomatic for covid -19 , awake and conscious having difficulty breathing.  You’ve been instructed not to respond.

 

 Let EMS handle it they are properly trained and have better PPE.  Once an hour the phone goes off with a code change. That last ambulance call, cpr being performed. 1/2 hour later another cpr, 1 hour after cpr again. They died in their homes. Units get assigned to go take the reports. It’s not a lot of paper work but we know they’ll be out for the remainder of tour awaiting the medical examiner. More units assigned to DOAs. We’re being spread thin. Trying to console grieving families with a mask on your face is no easy task.  

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You cover jobs out of your sector as well as your own. You get a 911 call for someone having a violent mental episode. Great , now you need to transport them with EMS for psychological evaluation at the hospital. The last place you want to be. You don’t want to use the EMS and hospital resources  if you can help it because they are busy trying to save lives. Sadly, you have no choice. Now you’re at the hospital with an irate emotionally disturbed person in custody. Stop. Look around. Everyone is coughing. You’re in the emergency room. The same room all covid patients enter. Doctors and nurses are in full head to toe PPE. Gowns, goggles, head cover, n95 masks and gloves. You don’t even have the right n95 mask because you were not supplied properly.

 

Finally at home, clean and safe.  Just don’t get to close to the spouse , kids or pets. I definitely don’t have it, you tell yourself..... I probably don’t have it .....I hope I don’t have it.   Have to get to bed so you can wake up and do it again tomorrow.

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Best Regards, 

Dennis