A message from President Johnny Crumby
Since my last newsletter there has been another officer killed in the line of duty in the State of Tennessee. This makes our fourth tragedy since January. Dickson County Deputy Keith Bel-lar was on routine patrol and stopped at what appeared to be an automobile accident. At that time a male suspect shot through his window, killing officer Bellar. The suspect later turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. What appeared to be a simple traffic accident was actually a domestic dispute that ended tragically. One of our new assistant chaplains, Brother Rob Michaels (TN041), responded to Vanderbilt Hospital where he comforted and assisted the family and the mem-bers of the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office. Although Deputy Bellar was not an FOP member, he was a brother law enforcement officer and his family and the department were very appreciative for the FOP responding and the support they were shown.
At the Spring Board Meeting the Trustees approved the addition of a Chaplain’s Committee. The com-mittee will be made up of ordained ministers across the State of Tennessee and their mission will be to assist in critical incidents when needed. All of the ordained ministers will be either Active or Associ-ate Members of the Fraternal Order of Police. If you know of an individual in your area that meets this criteria and is interested in serving the FOP in this capacity, please have them contact Dickey Hogan at dhogan@m.c.utmck.edu or Rob Michaels at robertmichaels@comcast.net.
With this in mind, we have added 2nd VP Scottie Delashmit to the Memorial
Committee to oversee additions to the Police Memorial Wall. We want to ensure
that all officers that de-serve to be on the wall are added and Scottie has been
tasked with making sure those added meet the guidelines and requirements for
this memorial. If you know of anyone that has accidently been left off or
qualifies to be included, please contact Scottie at scdelash-mit@tiptonco.com.
In closing, I want to thank everyone for the hard work you do to represent
both your local and state FOP lodges.
Be safe and enjoy the 4th of July holiday.
The Legislature Report from Chairman Jimmy Gafford
The 2011 session of the 107th General Assembly adjourned on Saturday, May 21, 2011. In this session there were 2,161 House Bills and 2,121 Senate Bills for this half of the 107th General Assembly. As of the printing of this newsletter, there were 510 new laws (Public Acts). There will be more new laws signed in upcoming weeks. Our main objective for this session was to protect payroll deduction, PAC contributions and other anti-union legislation that was being proposed. During these hard economic and anti-union times, we were able to achieve some of the goals that we had set. Listed below is some of the legislation that the Tennessee FOP gained this session.
New Law PC 190
- Law Enforcement – As introduced, establishes the Blue Alert system to provide rapid dissemination of information to aid in detection of persons when a law enforcement officer is killed, injured or suspiciously missing in the line of duty.
Special License Plates
As introduced, authorizes the issuance of Tennessee Fraternal Order of Police new specialty earmarked license plates to members and associate members of the organization with-out the 1,000 plate minimum and allocates 50% of revenues derived from the sale thereof to the or-ganization’s charitable foundation; deletes the authorization for the National Fraternal Order of Police new specialty earmarked license plates.
New Law PC 81
-Police Pay Supplement. As enacted, clarifies that money deposited in the police pay
supplement fund can only be used for the payment of police pay supplements and such other pay-ments as may be authorized by the police pay supplement statute.