Need Cited For Guildelines In Off Duty Incidents
Written by Issatu Sesay On Friday, February 01, 2008 @ 10:35 AM
All off-duty incidents require quick thinking, courage, and determination by an officer and the following brief accounts demonstrate the severity of results, good and bad, when off-duty officers act. Two of the incidents occurred in New Jersey this year.
At 1 a.m., Jan. 7, 2007, off-duty Paterson P.O. Tyron Franklin was shot and killed as he struggled to retrain a gunman during a robbery attempt at a restaurant. The shooter, a reputed gang member, had been recently released from prison serving time for a gun charge.
The felon was arrested in Irvington, eleven days after he killed Officer Franklin.
Officer Tyron Franklin had been an officer for 9 months.
On July 15, 2007 near mid-day, Mercer County Sheriff’s Det. Joshua Hahn, was off-duty when he was shot in the chest attempting to stop an assault of another citizen. The shooter was purported to be a member of the violent Bloods gang and had just been released from prison in April.
The shooter was later arrested in Trenton. Det. Hahn thankfully is recovering well from a serious wound.
In February of this year in Salt Lake City, Utah, an off-duty officer, Ken Hammond, having a Valentine’s Day dinner date with his wife, responded to the sound of gun shots in the outer mall as a teenager went on a shooting rampage, killing five people. The carnage stopped when the off-duty officer returned fire with his own firearm. The young shooter was arrested and numerous lives were saved by officer’s quick reaction.
In January 200, in providence, R.I., during the early morning hours, an off-duty officer, Sgt. Cornell Young, intervened in an assault in a local diner.
Unfortunately, responding officers mistook Sgt. Young, who was in civilian clothes, as the perpetrator. The off-duty officer was mistakenly shot and killed by arriving officers. No criminal charges were placed against the officers; however they and two police departments are facing a current civil liability suit as a result of this off-duty incident.
Source: The Garden State’s Law Enforcement Journal - October 2007
Vol. 11 No. 10
In Recent News
January 31, 2008 -- The street brawler who sparked the friendly-fire killing of an off-duty policeman in White Plains.
Police say Ridley, 23, who had been a member of the Mount Vernon police force for two years, was then shot to death by four Westchester County cops who did not know he was an officer.
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