Cop wades into water, carries man 1/4 mile on his back

[paulsby]

what i find most interesting (but totally unsurprising) is the selection bias. very minimal coverage of this in the local press. if this cop had shot somebody, or been caught doing something wrong, it would be front page news. thus, people get very skewed perspective. minimal coverage in seattle times, etc. had to go to the newstrib to get a decent article. note also he quit a lucrative cop job to VOLUNTEER to go to iraq, after 911. a huge cut in pay, to serve the country. seattle-pi had a tiny blurb on their police blog. not even a story. a police blog blurb.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/804065.html?source=rss


...
Lefler pulled the man to his feet but he couldn’t walk. So Lefler threw him over his shoulder and headed back out of the river. It was an even match. The rafter was about 5 feet 9 and 160 pounds, the same as Lefler. Getting back to shore in the dark meant finding a new, shorter route and crossing side channels, some ankle deep; others waist deep. On his way back Lefler kept one eye on the lights of nearby homes and one eye on the rafter. “He was moaning and groaning,” Lefler recalled. “I wanted to keep him awake.” As they reached the shore a quarter-mile away, an ambulance pulled up and took the rafter, a Maple Valley man in his mid-20s, to Auburn Regional Medical Center. Lefler – who with his wife Casandra has three children, ages 4 months to 5 years – is no stranger to public service, sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart said. A 1988 Rogers High School graduate, Lefler served four years in the Marines before joining the Sheriff’s Office in 1993. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he took a four-year leave of absence to rejoin the Marines. He did two tours in Iraq, including participating in the deadly offensive in Fallujah in 2004. He was wounded there and earned a Purple Heart. “I was nicked,” he said.
...

[JANdad]

1. Good for him!

:patriot:

[StarryNite]

2. He's a hero.

He deserves a lot of credit for what he has done. But sadly not many will pay this story any attention. If it had been a bad cop story, people would be all over it.

[glitch]

20. A few of us pay attention to both, and give credit where it is due. The good cops are heroes.

The bad cops are not. 99.9% of us can tell the difference.

The good cops need to stop standing up for/with the bad cops.

[lamp_shade]

3. Thanks for sharing this.

[Fumesucker]

4. I have two reactions..

The first is, kudos to the man for doing the right thing in rescuing the rafter.

The second is, volunteering for Iraq was doing a disservice to America.

And I speak as a vet, although not a combat one.

[paulsby]

9. that's easy to say with 20/20 hindsight.

this guy volunteered right after 9/11. also, regardless of causus belli issues, it's pretty frigging unselfish to take such a massive cut in pay and job security and safety and took a much harder job. think about it. you have a well paying cop job, awesome benefits, etc. and you quit to enlist in the marines. i have the same respect for him that i have for tillman. note that many police agencies (mine for example), will pay officers the differential in pay between their police salary and their military salary, IF they are activated. this guy wasn't activated. according to the article he went on a leave of absence. he gave up a lot. i respect that












.

[Fumesucker]

12. I thought the same thing at the time..

My biggest fear almost immediately was overreaction on the part of our leaders, a fear that came to pass very quickly.

On the morning of 9/11/2001, my daughter was a Marine wife, she called me in utter panic and woke me from a sound sleep, I knew nothing of what was going on and never turned on the TV until several hours later after I had managed to calm her down a bit. My son in law was a helicopter mechanic and she was terrified he was going to be sent immediately into combat as a trigger puller. Normally she is more sensible but it took quite some time to make her realize that an NCO helicopter mechanic was unlikely to be forced into a grunt role somewhere in the Middle East or wherever, that he was more valuable repairing Cobra gunships.. or actually managing the repair shop as was his post at the time.

I spent the next few years trying to calm down people around me who had been whipped into an emotional lather over 9/11, Iraq, Iran and Muslims in general. Living as I do in the deep south, it was basically a futile exercise.


I respect his sacrifice, but that doesn't mean I agree with it.

[Flying Dream Blues]

5. K&R! nt

[redqueen]

6. Thanks for this.

:thumbsup:

[Control-Z]

7. Happy to K and +R

I love to hear this kind of story. Thanks for posting it.

[readmoreoften]

8. So when a cop does something good anywhere it excuses cops who split open gay men's skulls

or it excuses the killer of Oscar Grant.

Cops are SUPPOSED to help people. That's what they get paid for and that's why they get state-wide press when they die, as opposed to construction workers who die on the job every other day.

So every time an employee DOESN'T EMBEZZLE their company's funds its supposed to make the news?

I'm glad there are some good cops out there. I bet they're more pissed off at the bad cops than the "cop fans" who apologize for bad cops. And I think any cop who apologizes for police who use excessive force should immediately lose their jobs.

[paulsby]

10. nice strawman

and there is no excuse for excessive force or assault when committed by cops. who said that? also, you can think whatever you want (in regards to your last sentence) but the 1st amendment applies. cops are public employees and thus CANNOT be fired for advocating political positions that you disagree with. hth. but then, it's already established you don't respect due process. not surprising you also don't respect the 1st amendment.

[StarryNite]

11. Oh, brother

:eyes:

[MineralMan]

16. There's no relationship.

We're praising the cop because he went beyond what is normal. You try carrying a man your own size through that kind of terrain, then get back to us.

This is about this cop and this occasion, and has no relationship to any other cops or any other occasions.

[Suich]

13. Thanks for posting this, paulsby!

Haven't seen one peep about this on the news or the web-sites. I'm amazed he found the guy!

K & R!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

14. I don't think the skewed coverage is as much about cops as it is

that people pay attetion to things that are threatening more than to things when they're going well. It's just as cops pay more attention to potential threats than to the birds and flowers when they're out in public. :)

What a great story. Thanks.

[paulsby]

15. i have commented on this before

i think it's largely a "if it bleeds it leads" thang. i certainly don't think (most) newspapers consciously don't print positive stories about cops because they have an agenda. but the news cycle skews towards the bloody. most "good cop" stories are NOT bloody. occasionally, they are, but usually they are of the life saved, or bloodshed avoided. and that's boring to newspapers. i know personally that i have been involved in incidents, and seen other incidents that don't make the news at all, but are at least as heroic. many police PIO's also do not work hard at getting good stories /press releases out. it's a mindset thang. i've seen two incidents in my own agency where cops ran into burning buildings and saved people. NEITHER made the newspapers or news AT ALL. no press release (which is the cops fault).

[EFerrari]

18. You know what will never get a headline? This year, the gang that usually

comes to the house across the street to party and do illegal fireworks at three in the morning and to deal from their driveway to a parade of customers weren't here on the Fourth. They weren't here because my neighbors and I have tried hard to hold the line and whenever they do shit like that, we call Taraval Station. And Taraval Station ALWAYS comes right out and handles them. So, the Fourth on my city block was really nice and safe, felt like an okay place for families, because of all the work and all the calls that came before. Those jerks had to find somewhere else to act out. That will never make any paper.

[seabeyond]

17. i love happy cop stories. and yes i think it is important we hear them. thanks. n/t

[reflection]

19. Thanks for posting this, paulsby.

Always nice to read about good people doing good things.

[bertman]

21. Another true hero, in more ways than one. Thanks for the post, paulsby.