Law-enforcement agencies have faced distinct challenges during the pandemic because they rely on face-to-face contact to do their jobs. Vaccine hesitancy is one of those difficulties.
By Kelli Smith
The Dallas police sergeant with a penchant for jokes and big gestures has been gone for more than a year, but those he left behind still grieve.
They remember the Navy veteran’s larger-than-life personality and his ability to stay calm in stressful situations. They remember how personally he took his 21 years as a cop, which was mostly spent patrolling neighborhoods like Pleasant Grove in southeastern Dallas.
And, the mother of his children said, they remember his last days hooked on a ventilator, isolated from loved ones after he contracted COVID-19 and suffered a stroke.
“We’re just trying to figure out our way without him,” Katie McCoy said.
Sgt. Bronc “Bronco” McCoy’s battle with COVID-19 went the way it has for many of the 5 million people worldwide whose lives have been claimed by the virus — rapidly and unexpectedly.
He’s one of more than 20 North Texas law-enforcement officers who have died of coronavirus-related causes since the beginning of the pandemic last year.
Law-enforcement agencies have faced distinct challenges during the pandemic because they rely on face-to-face contact to do their jobs.
Vaccine hesitancy is one of those difficulties. Local governments and law-enforcement leaders across the country have been embroiled in tense debates about whether to enforce vaccine mandates on first responders as some officers resist getting a shot.
Those battles aren’t likely in North Texas because of state laws, but the toll of the pandemic and questions about whether officers should be required to get vaccinated have reverberated across local agencies.
For McCoy, it took only four days in the hospital. He died Nov. 16, 2020, before a vaccine was available, leaving behind two young children with a mother trying to do her best for them.
Inside the McCoys’ two-story Forney home one recent day, Katie McCoy thumbed through a book of memories that she made for their daughter, Scarlett, who she said likes to show others her “daddy book” filled with pictures of happier times.
The Dallas police community still tries to help the family and has been a huge source of support, Katie McCoy said. But it’s not the same without Bronco around.
Their son Ryan, who turns 2 this month, doesn’t know much about his father. But Scarlett, 4, only recently stopped asking when her dad was going to come down from heaven, her mother said.
She’s also started asking tougher questions.
Recently, Katie McCoy said, Scarlett caught a minor illness. The 4-year-old voiced a question that her mom struggled to answer: “Am I going to die like Daddy died?”
A national debate
From March 2020 through late October, at least 937 Dallas police staff members tested positive for COVID-19, including 785 officers and 152 civilian employees. There are about 3,100 officers and 600 non-sworn members in the Dallas Police Department.
Sgt. Bronco McCoy was the first Dallas police officer to die from complications of COVID-19. Since then, three more DPD officers have died of causes related to the virus: reserve Officer David Ruiz, Sr. Cpl. Arnulfo Pargas and Officer Scott Harn.
The city declined to release additional information about officers’ testing results and vaccination statuses.
Nationally, more than 500 officers have died from COVID-19, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, a nonprofit that tracks law-enforcement deaths in America.
The virus has been the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths since the pandemic began, according to the group. The second leading cause, gunfire, has killed 110 officers in the line of duty the last two years, the nonprofit reported.
First responders interact with the community every day, which heightens the risks of COVID-19 for officers and the people they encounter.
On one side of the debate, some government leaders argue that close contact with the community is the very reason vaccines should be mandated for officers. Critics, including some law enforcement agencies,have countered that threatening to fire officers who don’t comply undermines public safety and could lead to a mass exodus.
Across America, the disputes are playing out.
The city of Chicago has been locked in a legal and vitriolic battle with a police union after officials threatened to stop paying officers who don’t abide by a Dec. 31 vaccination deadline. The head of the union said officers should disobey the order, prompting the city to file a lawsuit alleging the union was encouraging an “illegal strike.”
The city on Dec. 1 dropped that lawsuit, saying the complaint became unnecessary as more officers complied. But in a trend reflected across the country, law enforcement agencies are still behind other local departments in complying with vaccine requirements.
Local governments in Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle have faced similar clashes.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva in November said he wouldn’t obey a mandate ordering deputies be vaccinated or face termination. Villanueva said the requirement would prompt thousands of employees to quit or retire early, but there has been no reported increase in attrition since the mandate was implemented, according to The Associated Press.
Texas laws prevent a related battle from happening here. Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order in August banning local-government-imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates. He issued another order this fall barring any entity from enforcing vaccine mandates for workers.
‘They’re getting crumpled up’
The city of Dallas has offered an incentive for employees to get their vaccines, and it no longer offers paid leave to unvaccinated employees who contract the virus.
First responders, however, are exempt from that rule because a state law requires police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and detention workers be paid if placed on quarantine leave.
Dallas police Chief Eddie García, who called himself “pro vaccine but not pro vaccine mandate,” said he was disheartened to see other cities firing officers. He said it’s difficult to hire new police personnel, and those cities aren’t making distinctions on the caliber of officers facing termination.
“Every city should be mindful about the ramifications when honorable officers get their livelihoods taken away,” García said. “It’s almost as if they’re getting crumpled up and thrown away.”
He said COVID-19 has been a challenge because officers have had to stay out in the community even before a vaccine was available and as many residents were sheltering at home to stay safe.
“I think that gets lost from time to time, that these officers didn’t get to work from home,” García said.
A lasting impact
The Rockwall Police Department was one of the first law-enforcement agencies in America to lose an officer to the virus.
Officer Tracy Allen Gaines worked as a school resource officer at Rockwall High School. He died Aug. 3, 2020, after battling the virus for about a month.
The impact of his death is still felt in the department today.
Rockwall police Chief Max Geron said Gaines was one of the first officers to illustrate issues of underlying conditions that can exacerbate the virus’ damage.
He said the challenges posed by COVID-19 have been “something of a rollercoaster,” adding that the department has “done all that we can do” to encourage vaccinations. He said it was heartbreaking to see reports that multiple officers had died of the virus recently in North Texas.
“I know there’s no guarantee with the vaccine that you won’t get it, but by gosh I would encourage every law-enforcement officer to get vaccinated for the betterment and the health of the people that we serve,” Geron said.
He said police departments are a microcosm of society, and he doesn’t doubt he has officers who fall on both sides of the issue — some who remain skeptical, and others who are already vaccinated and have gotten a booster shot as recommended by public-health officials.
“It’s frustrating to be living through all of that back-and-forth,” Geron said. “I wish we could be of one mind on protecting the public.”
Remembering Hutch
Last month at a Haltom City park, a crowd of about 150 mourners bowed their heads and raised light-blue glowsticks in the air as they paid tribute to a 31-year-old man they called a hero.
A diagonal line of police squad cars stretched across the grassy field in front of them, awash in a blue light as they memorialized Haltom City police Officer Kris Hutchison.
Hutchison — “Hutch,” as he was known by colleagues — died Oct. 27 after three weeks battling COVID-19.
He was a Marine Corps veteran who served as a school resource officer and whose reputation for loving kids showed itself in the scores of families and children who stood that day, eyes turned toward a stage where loved oneshonored one of the area’s most-recent fallen officers, who left behind a wife, son and daughter
Piano music played and a slideshow of pictures was displayed as local leaders and family took the stage to address the crowd.
There were few mentions of the virus that took his life. The speakers remembered his courage and heroism, his affinity for his beard and passion for his work at North Oaks Middle School.
They wondered how something so unfair could happen to someone who was strong. Someone who aspired to help others.
“We are only left with a question of why,” Mayor An Truong said. “It doesn’t seem fair to any of us gathered here, but that is the harsh reality of life.”
As the sun went down at the end of the vigil, two lines of officers stood on either side of a sidewalk in front of the city’s Veterans Memorial to salute Hutchison’s family.
Then they broke off to return to their homes and jobs, another department changed by the loss of its own.
