In September, I wrote an Article that said that I was Angry and I was not going to take it anymore.

 

Well, many friends wanted to know, why exactly I was so angry.

 

Perhaps the easiest way to answer that is from my current position as a person that is knowledgeable about civil and disability rights. What I now know, I did not know then, the discovery is really both insulting, and it just makes you angry.

 

Like many young people, I spent 12 ears trying to graduate from high school and I barely made it. Then after attending and failing at (6) universities, the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission sent me to the University of Cincinnati for Testing. Not a surprise, they discovered and determined that I was learning disabled.

 

Imagine all those years of teachers yelling at me for not keeping up and then in my years of trying to attend college, I learn, years later that there was and is a learning disability.

 

While working in Texas, I remember being stung by a scorpion at work and hearing my supervisor tells me to “go and just put ice on it”. Later, I injured my back and I was not familiar with Workmen’s Compensation. Interestingly the company did not offer me any information concerning my rights as an injured worker. Ultimately, I lost my home and had to return home with a new wife and young child to live with my parents.

 

I can remember when I was in the U. S. Army and my right hand was repeatedly injured. In 1982, I was discharged from the Army. I filed all of the “appropriate” paper work for disability benefits and did not receive any compensation until 2004 when I got mad and did it myself.

 

It was then that I learned that I could have been receiving benefits from my County VA Service Center.

 

Then when I suffered a heart attack in my police cruiser and my whole world fell apart. I could not even formulate a sentence, let alone remember, so the calls to Workmen’s Compensation were wasted and I never did receive any Benefits.

 

…and my then Police Chief nor any of the Command Officers certainly didn’t tell me about the $100,000 payment from the U. S. Department of Justice for Public Safety Officers.

 

Time when along and I applied for Social Security and that (5) minute Evaluation, yes (5) minutes, I just knew that was not going to get me any Social Security Benefits. It was not until Senator John Glenn intervened before I was able to get my Benefits.

 

…and like most police officers, I had been moon lighting so I could afford my Child Support Payments. Unfortunately with the Heart Attack, came the unemployment and loss of two careers.

 

So I thought, luckily, I had a long term insurance policy that would take care of me for Life, or at least it was supposed to, again not so.

 

Again after a less than (5) minute medical exam, I was denied my disability benefits. They now currently owe me over $300,000. Unfortunately, in the State of Ohio, Our State Department of Insurance does not have any enforcement authority.

 

Then of course, there is the nightmare of the State Department of Job and Family Services. Where you can get a different answer from every Caseworker.

 

Now of course, I have said all of that to introduce one of my current Cases that I am working on in Fort Worth, Texas.

 

A man with multiple Disabilities accidentally shoots and kills his wife who too lived with multiple disabilities.

 

They had been happily married for years. On a Friday she visits and leaves the Beauty Salon, no one knew where she was, and she did not come home that night.

 

At approximately 9:00 A.M., the next day, she pulls onto the street in front of her house and parks. She calls the police on her cell telephone and says simply, I am going to break in to my husband’s residence.

 

Three officers responded and told her, if that is what she wants to do, go ahead and they leave. Does anyone begin to see a problem here?

 

Anyway, she goes through a 10-Foot side fence into the back of the house. She gets a heavy object and passes by all of the windows in the back of the house, passes by all of the windows on the side of the house and goes to the very bedroom window where she and her husband sleep.

 

She immediately starts breaking out the windows, literally awakening and scaring her husband to death. Him being still asleep and groggy, he grabs a loaded gun on the dresser, hollers for unknown person to stop and fired in the direction of the window twice.

 

The second bullet causes his wife too scream and he immediately drops the gun, shouting “Oh God, No!” He runs out the front door and around to the side of the house. By the time, he reaches down to pick up his wife, an Officer has his weapon at his head, saying; you are under arrest.

 

Odd, how close was that officer that he could have been there that quick?

 

Is it possible that these (3) Officers went somewhere close by and parked, just to wait and see what would happen?

 

If so, I have a real problem with that because it cost a woman that was clearly having a Medical Crisis, her life.

 

Now, her husband has been sentenced to (50) years in prison.

I visited him recently at the Robertson Unit in Abilene. Despite his documentation of disability, he is not receiving medical services nor does he have any of the required medical equipment he needs to function as a person with multiple disabilities.

 

Therefore, the fight is on and sadly, he does not know what he needs to know so I am attempting to advocate for him.

 

Fortunately, for him, I am a Veteran Police Officer who is knowledgeable in the ADA and sensitive to disability rights because of my own fights and my respect for professional and ethical law enforcement.

 

If I was not an ex police officer, it would appear to me to just be another Homicide Case and the State got their man.