Beat the retirement blues: What to expect when leaving LE

This entry was posted on 8/1/2007 12:04 AM and is filed under The Policevet,Pulling the Pin,American Police Veterans,Op Ed,Disability,Just the Facts,Beyond the Badge,Shattered Shields,Retirement,Advocacy.

Beat the retirement blues: What to expect when leaving LE
Editor, PoliceOne
with Rachel Fretz

AMERICAN POLICE VETERANS

There is a group for retired and disabled police officers. American Police Veterans www.policevets.org is a fraternal group offering peer support and advocacy. Policevet's members seek to maintain the sense of belonging, while aiding those seeking a successful transition to life beyond the shield.

Policevets also allows members to post articles on any subject relating to retirement planning, post career activities and post retirement advocacy in Beyond the Shield Journal of the American Police Veterans.

Policevet's peer support activities have proven to be a life saving resource providing understanding and compassionate response to those in need of an understanding audience.

Disabled officers are welcome in right from the moment of injury. Many of you know that a career ending injury will leave you socially isolated and financially strained. Policevets membership has been especially important to disabled police and their families throughout the disability litigation and retirement transition process. Policevets is does not offer legal, medical or mental health advice, yet its services cannot be underestimated.

Police officers need to promote healthy and truthful commentary on the effects of early-unplanned retirement due to career ending injuries. Throughout the country officers and their families are unprepared and will face a tough reality of few resources, little support and lost futures for their families.

The current retirement manta from the law enforcement media assumes a completed career on the heels of a pre retirement financial plan and adequate pension. It ignores the fact that injured officers suffering career ending injuries mirror those that die in the line of duty. They are young. Few die at the cusp of a retirement.

The disabled are in their 20's, 30's and 40's. They are paying college loans, mortgages supported by OT, extra duty details or through moonlighting; they have young children with plans for college educations.

These officers will be locked into pensions that reflect a portion of their base wages, while being locked out of the work force by income limits or threatened loss of the disability pension.

Many disabled officers will not qualify for social security disability. Their health care costs relating to the injury might be paid for by the employer or maybe not! They will take on a disportionate share of the healthcare costs. It some jurisdictions disabled officers must pay 100% of their healthcare costs until the statutory or contractual retirement age.

For the officers who have put aside money toward retirement or their children's education, they will find that will rapidly evaporate, as most disability retirement processes are adversarial.

Policevets is a positive experience for those in healthy retirement and those suffering the trauma of career ending injuries.

All American law enforcement officers are invited to participate in a unique American community of retired and disabled law enforcement officers at www.policevets.org.

Never Alone- Together as One 

Original Article Source : http://www.policeone.com/health-fitness/articles/1295726/

 

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• 8/25/2007 11:37 PM JAMES W PARKS wrote:
  My name is James W. Parks, I am a disabled Judicial Marshal.I live on $500.00 per month, I also get 1284 dollars from social security.My wife, as soon as I became disabled left me. I have twins,they are Bailey and Kennedy age 5.They are the most pretty little girls who love their old daddy. I am 53 years old. I want all of you out there to please listen to me. You are my brothers and sisters.If any one of you ever knew me you would see a very kind and gentle person,I am nothing like what I was before. There are a lot of you out there that suffer, more than me. But what has happened to me has been very bad. I was a deputy sheriff, Some of us caught our bosses stealing, the others were all afraid of losing their jobs. I was in Connecticut,there were 8 high sheriffs. I was not married, my brothers and sisters worked every day we had no medical no pension, nothing. They assigned us to a unit, to serve civil warrants, and to round up dead beat parents.What happened to me,and others I will not go into detail, but a all out war began in this State, me, and some whom took a stand, against corruption, and fraud, and abuse of powers, against the most powerful organization in this country, the Connecticut Sheriff's. I won that battle,and I have paid a very, very bad price.I got injured,I picked a water container up, blew my disc out.I went to the states Dr. he gave me some pills and told me I had a back strain, no MRI. This was the same week the voters had voted all the Sheriffs out of office.My girl friend at the time got pregnant with the girls, and then we had this happen. We had a farm, the farm was in her family for over 100 years. I then again and again went back to this idiot doctor, he finally told me to get a MRI, the disc had crushed. I had these two babies, I was 50, had this farm, and then the state made us play medical out of pocket.The mortgage fell behind, we went into fortclosure, we then had to sell this home. It is now three years later, my father Harry, was named after his uncle whom is buried in Arlington and is a cmh recieptent.On July 16, 2005 he died, he was 84 years old.I have a brother whom since childhood has had a hate complex against me and I still to this date, have not seen him only from a distance for 28 years. He blocked me from going to my fathers funeral, then met my estranged wife at this funeral, then,they started and affair, they took all my money I had , over 100,000 cash gone, they took my children and his them moved. I had no money to hire a lawyer, in Connecticut they do not have lawyers for indigents. I tonight was arrested for failure to appear at court, for not getting my lie renewed. I cannot see well, my hands shake,what is even more terrible I am a former FOP lodge president, my Union the International brotherhood of police could care less, what happens to their own. The cop who gave me this ticket was young, the writing was so tiny you would need a magnifying glass to see one letter. I am somebody's dad!
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• 10/19/2007 11:51 AM TJ wrote:
  A great site I wish we had something like this in Australia. I was forcibly medically retired from my state police a few years back - we have NO compensation for injured on duty officers. The way it works is this: Get injured or ill from your duty - the state gov puts you through an incredible time of stress, very lacklustre "care" & " rehab" then decides it is all too hard- then throws you out! Loss of income, loss of profession, loss of house (no $ for mortgage), loss of family & friends, loss of whatever self esteem left...all this for the serving of basically ourselves to the people of the state!! It disgusts me how so many of us are treated like this. The military people have their own wars to fight and so do police officers. Yet there always seems to be more respect & attention given to military (God bless them) than to police. What can we do- the gov, the Pol command, the public DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT OUR PLIGHT!!!
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