Supporting fallen officers' families

Local chapter started by policeman's sister

Lisa Flahive was just a month from her Las Vegas police academy graduation when she learned her big brother Scott had been killed.

"I got a phone call," Flahive said. "All I remember was hearing 'Scott's been shot. He's dead.' The words brought me to my knees."

It was nine years ago, and Scott was a young police officer in Grand Haven, Mich. -- a small, quiet town where people didn't bother locking their doors and police officers didn't have to worry about being killed in the line of duty. Flahive thought her brother was invincible. At a strapping 6-foot-6, Scott had always been her protector.

"He was my hero, my buddy and at times my punching bag," Flahive said. "I never worried about Scott because he was big and strong enough to take care of himself."

But on Dec. 13, 1994, Scott came in contact with Keith Harbin, a known gang member who had just escaped from the Ottawa County Jail. When Scott approached the car in which Harbin and another jail escapee were riding, Harbin shot the 28-year-old officer. Scott's death stunned the local police department and the community where things like this didn't happen.

"Scott's department didn't expect a death," Flahive said. "It's a small town. Cops weren't supposed to die. They didn't know what to do. A police death insults a whole city."

Fortunately, Flahive said, Michigan had an active chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS), a nonprofit national grief support organization for law enforcement families who have lost a loved one in the line of duty. Flahive said volunteers from COPS helped see her family through their tragedy.

"I remember a stranger and his wife at the funeral," she said. "They pinned a blue ribbon on my mother, hugged her tightly and said their son (also) was a police officer killed in the line of duty. Immediately, I had a sense of hope. We too would live through this."

Flahive, who now works as a peer counselor for the Metropolitan Police Department, started a chapter of COPS in Nevada a little more than a year ago. She serves as the local organization's president.

"There has never been a chapter in Nevada whatsoever," Flahive said. "People have had to go through this by themselves. A lot of officers here haven't experienced a death. It's a matter of educating agencies about how to be supportive to family members."

Flahive said she was so numb after her brother's death that she didn't realize until much later how much COPS helped her family.

"There are so many complications to mourning when a police officer is killed," Flahive said. "Healing is different because you do it in public, in the media. There's usually a trial involved. Being around other survivors helps because you can see that they got through it."

Lesa Peterson, Nevada COPS treasurer, agrees. She wishes a local COPS chapter had existed when her husband, police Search and Rescue team member Russell Peterson, was killed in a Mount Charleston ice-climbing accident in 1998.

"The (Metropolitan Police Department) was pretty good at helping me fill out the paperwork and stuff," Peterson said. "But they were a little lacking on the emotional side of it. That was the major reason why we wanted to have the chapter here, so that we would have closer help."

Peterson said that since the local COPS chapter was formed, no Nevada police officer has been killed in the line of duty. If and when that occurs, though, COPS will be ready.

"We offer a lot of different things," Peterson said. "We have peer support and education about the different benefits survivors are entitled to. A lot of departments don't know about the benefits and what needs to be done. We drive survivors wherever they need to go and offer any kind of emotional support they need."

"COPS is there to assist families and affected co-workers with trial support, benefits, retreats and counseling," Flahive said. "They provide scholarships and summer camp for surviving children."

Flahive said her work helping other cops deal with crisis stems directly from her brother's death.

"When I went back (to the police academy) after Scott's funeral, I was totally numb," she said. "I didn't know if I wanted to be a cop anymore. But I decided I had come all this way, I wasn't going to quit. I wouldn't be doing this kind of work at all if Scott didn't die. I knew it was a worthy profession and I loved it. I just wanted to help in the aftermath of death."

According to COPS, 99 Nevada officers have been killed in the line of duty. The last was Northern Nevada officer Michael Scofield, killed in September, 2002. The organization's statistics date back to 1861.

For more information about Nevada COPS, visit www.nvcops.org.


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