Officer Down

Agent Billy Fred Clardy, III
Huntsville Police Department, Alabama
Huntsville Police Department, Alabama
End of Watch Friday, December 6, 2019
Age 48
Tour 14 years

Agent Billy Clardy III was shot and killed while participating in a narcotics operation with the HIDTA Gulf Coast Task Force.

The task force was conducting a buy-bust operation at a home on Levert Street, near the intersection of Oakwood Avenue, at 4:00 pm. Agents attempted to take the suspect into custody as the man delivered a large amount of narcotics to the home. The man immediately opened fire, striking Agent Clardy in an area not protected by his vest.

The man then fled on foot but was taken into custody after a short foot pursuit. He was charged with capital murder.

Agent Clardy was a U.S. Army veteran. He had served with the Huntsville Police Department for 14 years and had previously served with the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office, the Ardmore Police Department, and the Fayetteville, Tennessee, Police Department. He is survived by his wife, five children, two brothers, and his mother.

Agent Clardy’s father, Police Officer Billy Clardy, Jr., was also killed in the line of duty while serving with the Huntsville Police Department. Officer Clardy, Jr., was killed in a vehicle crash on May 3rd, 1978.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Hubble plus 30...

I remember when the Hubble was launched in 1990, and it was...a disappointment of sorts. There was a defect in it's primary telescope mirror, that was repaired on a later shuttle mission, in December 1993. However, even with the defect, the images of the universe were astonishing compared to other ground based telescopes.

The left image of spiral galaxy M100 is a view from Hubble's original WFPC-1 camera in wide-field mode on Nov. 27, 1993, just a few days prior to the STS-61 servicing mission. The effects of optical aberration in Hubble's 8-foot primary mirror blur starlight, smear out fine detail, and limit the telescope's ability to see faint structures.The newer image demonstrated that the corrective optics compensated fully for the aberration in Hubble's primary mirror, allowing the telescope for the first time to cleanly resolve faint structures as small as 30 light-years across in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away. CREDIT: NASA

Well, Hubble is getting old, but is still functional for the time being. How long will it last is an open question, Voyager 1 and 2 have stretched outside of the solar system and are still sending faint messages. With Hubble in orbit, it's conceivable it can be upgraded at a later date.

But from this morning's Aviation Week, "Hubble Space Telescope - Highlights Over The Years." He's to another 30 at least.

Hubble deployment from Discovery

Tasking and control of the Hubble

Carina Nebula Mystic Mountain

Galaxy NGC 2906

Eagle's Nebula Pillars of Creation

Galaxy UGC-2369

Jupiter and it's Red Spot

Galaxy NGC-4258

Planetary Nebula-2022

Nebula Hen-204, aka The Southern Crab Nebula 

Officer Down

Sergeant Joshua Eli Voth
Colorado Department of Corrections, Colorado
End of Watch Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Age 28
Tour 3 years

Sergeant Joshua Voth was killed when a boiler exploded at the Fremont Correctional Facility in Cañon City.

The explosion occurred at about noon when the boiler suffered a catastrophic failure.

Sergeant Voth had served with the Colorado Department of Corrections for three years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

Nemo me impune lacessit

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Master-at-Arms Oscar J. Temores
United States Navy Security Forces, U.S. Government
End of Watch Saturday, November 30, 2019
Age 23
Tour 1 year, 6 months
Badge U035

Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Oscar Temores was killed when his patrol car was intentionally struck by a vehicle that had run the gate at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

The vehicle entered Fort Story at Gate 8 on Atlantic Avenue by driving the wrong way in the outbound lanes at a high rate of speed at 7:35 pm. Personnel at the gate immediately requested assistance and MA2 Temores began to respond to the scene. The civilian driver of the vehicle intentionally struck MA2 Temores’ patrol car head-on responded to locate the vehicle.

MA2 Temores was transported to Virginia Beach General Hospital where he died a short time later. The subject, who was also injured, was taken into custody. His motive for entering the base is under investigation.

MA2 Temores had served with the U.S. Navy Security Forces for only 18 months. He is survived by his wife and 2-year-old son.

MA2 Temores was posthumously promoted to the rank of Master-at-Arms 2nd Class.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Detective Maureen M. O'Flaherty
New York City Police Department, New York
End of Watch Thursday, November 28, 2019
Age 57
Tour 20 years
Badge 846
Cause 9/11 related illness
Incident Date Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Detective Maureen O'Flaherty died as the result of cancer that she developed following her assignment to the search and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.

Detective O'Flaherty had served with the NYPD for 20 years. She is survived by her husband.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, seventy-two officers from a total of eight local, state, and federal agencies were killed when terrorist hijackers working for the al Qaeda terrorist network, headed by Osama bin Laden, crashed four hijacked planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

After the impact of the first plane into the World Trade Center's North Tower, putting the safety of others before their own, law enforcement officers along with fire and EMS personnel, rushed to the burning Twin Towers of the World Trade Center to aid the victims and lead them to safety. Due to their quick actions, it is estimated that over 25,000 people were saved.

As the evacuation continued, the South Tower unexpectedly collapsed as a result of the intense fire caused by the impact. The North Tower collapsed a short time later. Seventy-one law enforcement officers, 343 members of the New York City Fire Department and over 2,800 civilians were killed at the World Trade Center site.

A third hijacked plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania when the passengers attempted to re-take control of the plane. One law enforcement officer, who was a passenger on the plane, was killed in that crash.

The fourth hijacked plane was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing almost 200 military and civilian personnel. No law enforcement officers were killed at the Pentagon on 9/11.

The terrorist attacks resulted in the declaration of war against the Taliban regime, the illegal rulers of Afghanistan, and the al Qaeda terrorist network which also was based in Afghanistan.

On September 9th, 2005, all of the public safety officers killed on September 11th, 2001, were posthumously awarded the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor by President George W. Bush.

The contamination in the air at the World Trade Center site caused many rescue personnel to become extremely ill and eventually led to the death of several rescue workers.

On May 1st, 2011 members of the United States military conducted a raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden.

Rest in Peace Sis…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

The Voice says enough already!

As we continue to drudge along with little hope in sight, something light for the end of this Wuhan Virus week. The Moody Blues.

Have a great weekend!

Finally, light at the end of the tunnel!

My state will start opening for business next week! Other states are starting to say, "Enough already!", thank God. So in commemoration of this crack in the wall, Bruce Springsteen and Joan Jett.

Have a great weekend, and a better week!

Officer Down

Sheriff John Arthur "Big John" Williams, Sr.
Lowndes County Sheriff's Office, Alabama
End of Watch Saturday, November 23, 2019
Age 62
Tour 40 years

Sheriff John Williams was shot and killed around 8:00 pm while responding to a trespassing and noise complaint call at a gas station convenience store at the intersection of Highways 21 and 97 in Hayneville.

He had responded to the store after the owner called to report a large gathering of people in the parking lot who refused to leave. Sheriff Williams arrived at the scene and was speaking with an occupant of a truck about its loud music when the male shot him.

The male, the son of a neighboring Montgomery County sheriff's deputy, fled the scene but later returned and turned himself in. The truck was later determined to have been stolen.

Sheriff Williams was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and had served in law enforcement for more than 40 years. He is survived by his wife and children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Police Officer Rasheen Phillipe McClain
Detroit Police Department, Michigan
End of Watch Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Age 46
Tour 16 years
Badge Not available

Police Officer Rasheen McClain was shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence in which a woman’s boyfriend had broken into her home and threatened the occupants with a firearm.

When responding officers arrived on the scene, they encountered the victims outside. They informed Officer McClain that the man was inside of the home and armed. Officer McClain and other officers began clearing the home to locate the subject. They had cleared the main level and second floor before they began to clear the basement.

As they made their way down the basement stairs the man emerged at the bottom and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, striking Officer McClain in the neck and another officer in the leg. The subject was wounded by additional officers after running outside of the home. He was taken into custody one block away as he attempted to flee on foot.

Officer McClain had served with the Detroit Police Department for 16 years and was assigned to the 12th Precinct. He is survived by his wife and two stepchildren.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Investigator Cecil Dwayne Ridley
Richmond County Sheriff's Office, Georgia
End of Watch Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Age 51

Investigator Cecil Ridley was shot and killed while conducting a subject stop at a convenience store at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. near 12th Street in Augusta.

He was conducting proactive patrols with other members of the narcotics unit in response to recent gun violence in the area. They observed a group of individuals loitering in front of the convenience store and attempted to contact them.

Upon seeing the investigators one of the subjects walked into the store but was approached by a deputy inside. He began walking back outside when he saw Investigator Ridley walking into the store. The man immediately opened fire, striking Investigator Ridley.

Other deputies returned fire as he fled into the parking lot, wounding him, before taking him into custody. The subject who shot Investigator Ridley was on parole for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Primitive sodtware needed to respond to a very modern disease!

I remember taking a COBOL class in college, when I thought of changing majors to computer science. That didn't last long. But when I was working on my master's degree, I read a book on the vunerability of networks. One point it made was in the 1970s, we started to automate processes, such as power generation, dam control, etc. But these were proprietary software programs, you had to may a nerd to create them. Beginning in the 1990s, we started to buy software on Windows and Lynx platforms, off the shelf. Made the programs more capable, and user friendly. It also made it more susceptible to hackers, etc. \

Well, looks like New Jersey doesn't have that problem of being susceptible to bugs and hackers:

COVID-19 Response: New Jersey Urgently Needs COBOL Programmers (Yes, You Read That Correctly)
New Jersey desperately needs COBOL Programmers.

That’s what the State’s Governor, Phil Murphy, apparently meant today, when he said at a press conference that the State needed volunteers who with “Cobalt” computer skills to help fix 40-year-old-plus unemployment insurance systems that are currently overwhelmed as a result of COVID-19-related job losses.

COBOL, for those who are unfamiliar, is a computer language that is over 60 years old, and was once the staple of software development across industry and government. By the late 1980s, however, it had become sufficiently obsolete that many universities did not even include it in their computer science curricula. In fact, while there are certainly are significant COBOL-based systems still in use today, relatively few software developers under the age of 50 have ever seen, never mind written, even one line of COBOL. It is not surprising that even New Jersey’s 62-year old governor, who was an executive at Goldman Sachs for decades, had apparently not heard its name recently enough to remember it correctly.

COBOL’s heyday in the 1970s means that the majority of COBOL experts in America are likely well over 60 years old – making them significantly at risk for death or danger by COVID-19 – and probably a bit rusty at their former craft; many of them have likely not developed in COBOL since long before many of the readers of this article were born...

..., many others have voiced concerns – including in a government report entitled “Federal Agencies Need to Address Aging Legacy Systems” that was presented to a US Congressional Committee in 2016.

In the case of New Jersey, I can safely mention at this point, that shortly after I began filing payroll tax forms with the state in 2005, I sent emails to various State offices – and even a physical letter to then governor – that the systems with which I was interfacing appeared to both be using obsolete versions of software and contained configurations that could lead to security vulnerabilities. Some of those problems remained in place over a decade later.

The failure to keep systems current is not a keep-up-with-the-Joneses type issue. Today it is delaying unemployment compensation to large numbers of people who desperately need money for food and other necessities after losing their jobs to government-ordered COVID-19 shutdowns. Outdated software almost always introduces various security risks. And, in a 2018 article entitled Why You Should Not Use Software That Is No Longer Supported, I discussed multiple other serious problems introduced by utilizing outdated software; keep in mind that the focus of that piece was on organizations using the obsolete version of Windows known as Windows XP ; COBOL, which is 32 years older than XP, was obsolete even before XP was released...

Like any bureaucracy, the answer to the need for change is, "We've always done this this way, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it..." Well, it is broke, and should have been fixed two decades ago. Hopefully the governor gets this fixed after we go back to normal.

A Cop's Watch at Ten

On April 12, 2010, I joined my good friend and fellow Army veteran Darren Miller, he of Right on the Left Coast fame, on the blogosphear. My first post:

First Try

Hello!

Is there anybody out there?

I hope so…this is Mike from the Houston area just starting, so bear with me. Hope we have some good times together on this journey.

A decade since that first simple post. I've had great post, and some I wish I would not have posted. I've had people call me very ugly terms (usually deleted, as I say below, this is a family friendly blog), some who have complemented me, encouraged me, and said simply they liked a post. And I really appreciate those.

Where do we go from here? I don't know. I will try to post more regularly, the Wuhan Virus not withstanding. Most departments, like mine, are allowing few people to take time off. And I've gotten backed up on my emails and posts. But to all those who supported me in this, thank you, Happy Easter, and all the best!

On The Watch!

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff Stephen Michael Reece
Cheatham County Sheriff's Office, Tennessee
End of Watch Friday, November 15, 2019
Age 50
Tour 24 years
Badge 918

Deputy Sheriff Stephen Reece was killed in a vehicle crash at the intersection of Oak Plains Road and Route 41A South, in Montgomery County, at 2:15 pm.

His patrol car was struck as it entered the highway.

Deputy Reece was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of Operation Desert Storm and had served in law enforcement for 24 years. He is survived by his wife, two children, and three siblings.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Deputy Sheriff Makeem Ritrell Brooks
Northampton County Sheriff's Office, North Carolina
End of Watch Thursday, November 14, 2019
Age 27
Tour 6 months
Badge 414
Incident Date Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Deputy Sheriff Makeem Brooks was killed in a single-vehicle crash while responding to a shots fired call at approximately 11:30 pm.

He was driving on Highway 158 just outside of Garysburg when his patrol car left the roadway, entered a ditch, and overturned several times. He was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries shortly after midnight.

Deputy Brooks had served with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office for only six months. He is survived by several children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Detective Jorge Rene DelRio
Dayton Police Department, Ohio
End of Watch Thursday, November 7, 2019
Age 55
Tour 30 years
Badge 262
Incident Date Monday, November 4, 2019

Detective Jorge DelRio succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained on November 4th, 2019, while serving a search warrant as part of a DEA Task Force.

He and other members of the task force had made entry into the home, at 1454 Ruskin Road, and were in the process of securing it when a subject hidden in the basement opened fire as Detective DelRio descended the stairs. Detective DelRio was struck twice in the face and suffered critical wounds.

Other officers immediately rescued him from the home and drove him to a nearby hospital where he remained on life support until November 7th, 2019, so his organs could be donated.

More than nine kilograms of fentanyl, cocaine, and 60 pounds of marijuana were seized from the home.

Four subjects were arrested and are facing federal murder and narcotics charges.

Detective DelRio had served with the Dayton Police Department for 30 years and had been assigned to the DEA Task Force for 18 years. He is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Interim Police Chief Michael Knapp
Lynden Police Department, Washington
End of Watch Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Age 79
Incident Date Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Interim Police Chief Michael Knapp succumbed to injuries sustained the previous evening when he was struck by a pickup truck in the 200 block of Fourth Street.

He was crossing the street to attend a special city council meeting at the city hall introducing the three finalists for the permanent police chief position. The vehicle that struck him had its headlights off after sunset. Chief Knapp was flown to a hospital in Seattle with severe injuries and died the following day.

Chief Knapp had been appointed the interim police chief six months earlier. He was a former Police Officer with the Milpitas, California Police Department and a Deputy Sheriff with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. He was the Chief of Police for the City of Medina, Washington between 1998 and 2003, and was appointed Chief of Police for the City of Ferndale, Washington in September 2005 where he served until his retirement in 2016. Chief Knapp was a member of the California Bar Association, is a graduate of the 100th Session of the FBI National Academy and the Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State. Chief Knapp was also served in the United States Army.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Officer Down

Police Officer Jonathan Diaz
Lemoore Police Department, California
End of Watch Saturday, November 2, 2019
Age 31
Tour 6 years

JONATHAN DIAZ
Police Officer Jonathan Diaz was shot and killed while intervening in a domestic violence incident while off duty.

He was attending a birthday party at a home on Eddy Street, near Carolyn Avenue, in Hanford when another partygoer was violently assaulted by her boyfriend. Officer Diaz was able to move the woman outside to safety and then returned into the home to de-escalate the incident.

The subject who assaulted the woman was an investigator for another local agency. As Officer Diaz re-entered the home the man opened fire, killing Officer Diaz and wounding his own father. The subject then killed himself.

Officer Diaz had served with the Lemoore Police Department for three years and had previously served with the Huron Police Department for three years. He is survived by three children, parents, and three siblings.

Officer Diaz was the recipient of his agency's 2018 Officer of the Year award.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh.