A.G. Gancarski
You’ve probably never heard of Richard Futch. He’s a Zone 4 officer in Jacksonville. On July 2, however, he suffered an interruption in service.
As he wrote in a letter forwarded to the office of Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, Futch “was involved in an on-duty T-bone vehicle crash causing my vehicle to flip over and spin around, landing upright. I was trapped inside my car and pedestrians were able to get my car open. I was injured but thankfully nothing was broken. First of all, I was wearing my seatbelt and if I hadn’t been, you wouldn’t be reading this e-mail and I may have very well ended up ‘on the wall.'”
It could have been an unhappy ending, both for Futch and another officer.
“I was scheduled to refresh an officer coming back to patrol from a specialized unit that day. At roll call, he asked if he could just ride his beat and call if he had any questions. God was looking out for both of us that day and he was spared from being a passenger in a car that was completely totaled,” Futch wrote.
The patrol unit looks like a piece of modern art; Futch writes that “pictures don’t do it justice,” and that his wife broke down crying when she saw it.
“I was actually on a Bluetooth hands-free phone call with her during the crash so you can imagine the horror she experienced hearing her husband get hit, from the screeching of the tires, the impact of the metal, the noise of rolling over and the moans of her husband being hurt and trying to get out of the car,” Futch wrote.
The support Futch received from those of higher rank in the sheriff’s office is documented therein, as is support from Mayor Curry.
“The next morning, Mayor Curry called and left me a voicemail checking on me. Mayor Curry called me again the next Monday and I spoke with him for about 10 minutes. I don’t know about you, but I was very honored that the Mayor of Jacksonville would take the time during his first week in office to call a beat cop twice to check on him. He also offered his support and to run interference for me if I encountered any difficulty. The Mayor has already shown that he supports his police officers and backs it up with action and not just rhetoric,”
Futch refers to what happened to him as a “war story.” It illustrates the perils that Jacksonville’s beat cops face every day.
It also illustrates that there is a network of support when one of them goes down. And that network extends to the highest levels in city government.
