Murder At Pope's Cafeteria

By Ronald Martin

Story about the quadruple homicide in Des Peres, Mo in Oct 1980. Committed by a mass murderer and serial killer. Multi-national killer and some of the possible crimes connected to him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Dec 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483492100

Ronald Martin

Born in Michigan Valley, Kansas on 13 January 1939, raised in Polk and Orange County Florida; attended Fern Creek Elementary School, Memorial and Howard Middle Schools and Edgewater High School. Graduated from Rollins College with a BS in General Studies, and Regis University with an MBA in Business. Worked for 38 years at Martin Marietta, now Lockheed Martin, 8 years with IBM and 7 years as a private consultant with Technigraphics. I wrote these chronicles to preserve some of the events of my early life and the oral lore shared by my mother and father and uncles. I wanted future generations to have a glimpse of how our family lived in the earlier years of their existence. Hopefully this will preserve the events of the past for the next generations.

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Murder at

Pope’s Cafeteria

RONALD MARTIN

Copyright © 2018 Ronald Martin.

Image credit: Kirk Martin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9211-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9210-0 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 11/09/2018

The Sally Lucas, Abduction/Murder, from the West County Shopping Center.

The West County Shopping Center opened on Wednesday, February 5, 1969 and The first major crime at West County Shopping Center, which is a place occurred on Monday, August 16, 1971. The first major crime was experienced at the West County Shopping Center located at 12450 Manchester Road in Des Peres, Missouri. It occurred on Monday, August 16, 1971, between the hours of 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm, which two years and six months and eleven days after the grand opening.

Sally Lucas, 36 year old, w/f, a resident in the Village of Town and Country, in the neighboring community of the City of Des Peres, Missouri. She was abducted from the West County Shopping Center parking lot. This incident was approximately two and one half years and eleven days after the initial grand opening of the West County Shopping Center on Wednesday, February 5, 1969. Her badly decomposed body would be later recovered by a farmer, living on Wild Horse Creek Road, in unincorporated St Louis County, Missouri, in a wooded area near a dry creek on Sunday, September 5, 1971.

Her killer was named Anthony Paul Damico, 25 year old w/m, he was apprehended on Friday, August 27, 1971 in Panama City, Florida, eleven days after The Abduction/Car jacking.

Damico was still driving the victim’s vehicle, a green 1969 Pontiac Convertible, which she had been driving when he abducted her. Her purse and personal belongings were still in the vehicle.

Damico had concocted a story when police apprehended him. The story was that Sally Lucas was still alive when he left her, and that she was doing drugs with several hippies on the banks of the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee.

He continued with this story until her body was found on Sunday September 5, 1971 by ‘Alvin Steines’ on his farm, located on Wild Horse Creek Road in unincorporated St. Louis County. Damico, after being arrested on Friday, August 27, 1971 was misleading the family of the victim and the investigators until her body was found on Sunday September 5, 1971. He was giving false hope that she would be found alive all the time while knowing that he had killed her within hours of abducting her.

This behavior of Damico was very similar to another notorious kidnapper’s behavior. Carl Austin Hall who was the kidnapper of Bobby Greenlease.

Hall murdered and buried the victim shortly after the abduction had occurred and Hall also led the authorities and the victim’s family to believe that Bobby was still alive, long after the boy had been murdered by Hall.

The jury in Kansas City found Damico guilty of First Degree Murder of Sally Lucas after a change of venue was granted by the St. Louis County Courts and he was sentenced to life in prison on Saturday, July 1,1972.

Anthony Paul Damico, a w/m had previously documented criminal behavior. He had previously carjacked a car and he abducted a woman and her five year old son. This abduction was from the Northwest Plaza Shopping Center located in St. Ann, Missouri in 1966.

The Northwest Plaza Shopping Center, which was a cookie cutter style shopping mall located in St. Ann, St. Louis County, Missouri that the malls with Famous-Barr anchor stores had the same familiar domed style roof or Atrium as several malls in the St. Louis area.

In that crime shortly after the abduction by Damico the two victims were released at Missouri Bottoms Road and Ferguson Lane in Bridgeton, St. Louis County, Missouri.

The victim had been driving her Cadillac convertible. Anthony Damico drove off in her vehicle, which about 30 minutes later, was used by Damico to commit an armed robbery. [note: the use of a stolen auto to commit the crime with the automobile he stole, which was also a convertible, as was Sally Lucas’ vehicle.]

Damico had previously failed in at least three other attempted car jacking abductions in the St Louis Metropolitan area, and he admitted to committing eight other armed robberies in St Louis City and St Louis County area when he arrested in 1966.

He had also been convicted and had served time in the Missouri State Penitentiary for those crimes in 1967. He had been released from prison in 1970, after serving time for those robberies when he abducted and killed Sally Lucas from the West County Center Mall in 1971 and he was released after serving only approximately five years in prison for Sally Lucas’s killing.

His release in such a short time makes one wonder if the penal system is acting in sync with the Court system in keeping our streets safe by incarcerating the convicted criminals of seriously violent crime.

The second major crime at West County Mall

An Attempted Auto Theft at the West County Mall parking lot which is a place by a serial career armed robber. The planned auto theft was interrupted on Friday, March 28, 1975 at the West County Mall. This attempted criminal incident occurred, this was approximately three and one half years, after the Sally Lucas’s Abduction/Murder.

The Des Peres Department of Public Safety responded to a call of a Suspicious Vehicle on the West County parking lot on the east side in the J.C. Penney’s employee’s designated parking area.

This call resulted in the arrest of two individuals, who had planned to steal a vehicle to use to commit an armed robbery at the Schnuck’s Store that then was located on Manchester Road in the 11900 block just east of the West County Mall located on the north side of Manchester Road, at 12450 Manchester road. This incident will be discussed in detail further in the investigation of the Pope’s Cafeteria Robbery/Murders. This was surmised based on Roy Earl Schultz’s known modus operandi while committing armed robberies nationwide.

The Third Major Crime, at The West County Mall, The Robbery/Murders at Pope’s Cafeteria.

This is the beginning of this story of Murder at Popes Cafeteria.

Police administrators have learned and adopted our crime prevention programs to address enforcement of the criminal laws, at the places where crimes occur repetitively in our geography areas for which we are responsible, to perform proactive methods to prevent crime.

It was the morning of Thursday, October 23, 1980, it was a cool, crisp, crystal clear autumn day, perfect football weather. The St. Louis Metropolitan Area had just survived a record setting heat wave that summer in which scores of people had died from the heat. The weather of that day was a pleasant relief from the heat. Autumn was announcing its arrival and signaling that winter would soon set in. This day seemed to be just another day of work. It was one of those fall weather days that help usher in the full grip of winter that soon would follow.

It turned out to be a day that forever changed the lives of many people, including certainly mine, the victims, and the victim’s surviving family members, the department’s members, the investigators, the witnesses, the fellow workers of the victims, and the whole community itself were changed forever. Before that day was over we all had learned that, Evil had in fact, visited all of our lives that day.

I was driving to work in the unmarked police car, that was assigned to me, so that I could respond to emergencies from home, when circumstances required my presence. I was driving northbound on North Ballas Road, already inside the city limits of Des Peres, Missouri.

I was approaching the Public Safety Department building which was then located at 1019 N. Ballas Road on the west side of N. Ballas Road. Almost directly across from the present location at 1000 N. Ballas Road on the east side of Ballas Road, when I heard over my police car radio at approximately 7:44 hrs, the request from car #36, to which public safety officers Frank Florence and Mark Demas, both of whom were assigned to car #36, they were asking for an Ambulance, along with a supervisor, to respond to the employee entrance to the Popes Cafeteria, located at 12450 Manchester Road, at # 27 West County Center, in Des Peres, Missouri.

As I was driving north on Ballas Road, I saw the ambulance exit the Public Safety building and turn right onto Ballas Road and enter the West County Shopping Center by way of the north entrance off Ballas and head toward the cafeteria. I followed behind them wondering why the supervisor, Lieutenant Gene Bowles, had been requested to also respond. I proceeded driving in a non emergency, which was code two, which is with red lights only in car #31, not knowing the circumstances that awaited my arrival at the scene. I soon found out why? They were asking for a supervisor’s response to an ambulance call.

The police arrival at The Pope’s Cafeteria by the responding assist units of the Des Peres Missouri, Department of Public Safety’s police and ambulance personnel on October 23, 1980, it was at approximately 0750 hours. Just about the time I called, Out on the scene at Popes, via the police radio at approximately 0750 hours, Thursday, October 23, 1980, as I had stopped my vehicle behind the ambulance, and the marked patrol car #36. I saw a small group of what appeared to be very distraught people dressed in what appeared to be Popes Cafeteria’s kitchen employees’ work uniforms. They were saying very loudly, and excitedly, almost pleadingly "they’re inside!

It’s inside!"

Sergeant John Videmschek approached me. He was coming around at a quick pace at the front of the ambulance and he was carrying a shotgun. He yelled, Ron, it’s an armed robbery, with people shot. He also said that the building hadn’t been cleared, as I exited my vehicle. Additional assistance was requested and we went into the kitchen through the back door service entrance which was located in a rectangular enclave with employee entrances to Popes, and other businesses in the mall and a fire service sprinkler room. We had to walk past a light colored Chevrolet Monte Carlo that was parked at the Pope’s Cafeteria employees entrance door. A small dog inside the vehicle was barking incessantly.

Once inside the kitchen we proceeded through the main kitchen area to a small office off of the main kitchen. There I observed four people lying on the blood covered floor of the office. I actually didn’t notice any apparent visible signs of life from any of the victims. There was no visible movement or audible noises that I detected coming from the victims. Large pools of blood were already covering the floor in the office.

CrimeScene.jpg

IMAGE OF HOW THE VICTIMS WERE FOUND IN THE CAFETERIA OFFICE BY THE POLICE OFFICERS.

Public safety officer Mark Demas was standing at the door to the office securing the scene in that area. I was aware that the scene including the serving areas and the rest of the area that occupied the Pope’s Cafeteria space had to be cleared and secured while at the time not really knowing if the killer or killers were still in the building.

Before we started our clearing sweep of the cafeteria premises, the responding assist officers checked all of the doors leading to the restaurant from the mall, from the mall side of restaurant’s seven serving areas and the doors were locked indicating no one had exited the scene through those doors to the mall.

The doors were double keyed dead bolts which require using a key from either side of the door to open the doors if the are locked, indicating that no one had left the cafeteria area through those doors.

The crime had been discovered by the police when public safety officer Mark Demas and Frank Florence, who were assigned to the midnight patrol in their two man police car #36, were flagged down by two Pope’s female employees that had been reporting to work when they found the victims.

Public safety officer Frank Florence was a former police officer in the City of Maplewood located in St. Louis County. Frank has since passed away and he was a 20 plus year veteran patrolman, he and public safety officer Mark Demas were assigned to Car #36. Florence was a long time police veteran and Demas was a recent graduate of the Greater St. Louis Police Academy. This may in fact have been Demas’ first midnight Shift in a public safety patrol car.

Sgt. John Videmschek was a paramedic assigned to the ambulance #356 and public safety officer John Reifschneider, who also has passed, was a certified EMT driver assigned to the Ambulance #356. John Reifschneider was a former City of St. Louis Firefighter at several Engine Houses before coming to Des Peres. John Videmschek had been a St. Louis Firefighter assigned to the Rescue Squad stationed at Fire House # 43 before coming to Des Peres.

Lt. Gene Bowles had been a Metropolitan St. Louis Police officer assigned to the Traffic Division who also has passed away. He was a long time employee for the Des Peres Department of Public Safety who was the responding shift supervisor who had arrived in another marked police car shortly after I did. All of us at the scene made a clearing sweep of the kitchen, its adjoining dining rooms, including the Round Table Restaurant that operated off the kitchen of the main cafeteria and a storage area. I can vividly recall the adrenalin rush I experienced as we were clearing the building areas.

There were many areas to be cleared and numerous blind spots were encountered as we moved through each area in the business. It almost seemed to be happening in slow motion to me each time we moved into a blind un-cleared building area. I could feel the adrenalin kick as we moved from one uncleared area to another one which we all knew if the killer or killers were encountered it was a definite use of deadly force situation for our own safety.

We moved through the areas silently as possible using hand signals to move into each uncleared area. We all knew that whoever had shot the employees would certainly not hesitate to shoot us. I hadn’t ate breakfast and I can remember my stomach was growling, and I hoped that the growling wasn’t giving away my entry into the uncleared areas, funny how you recall such silly things when reflecting about situations where the results of your actions are unknown that are nerve racking to you.

The killer or killers were trapped, if they hadn’t left before we arrived. We moved counter-clockwise along the walls of each area not knowing what we would be facing at each new searched area. The person or persons were cornered and cornered animals are dangerous even normally non-aggressive animals will bite if they are trapped from escape.

I had learned that as a child from my maternal grandpa Charley Hecht when me and my brothers Ken and George, and my cousin Alan Hecht, were spending time with him at his farm during the summers, that cornered animals even normally docile rabbits will bite if they are cornered. He taught me, Ken, George and Alan this fact when we were gathering rabbits that we had caught in the traps that he had built and that we used on his farm in Franklin County Missouri.

The rabbit traps had release doors on both ends of the traps that were constructed to allow us and the trapped rabbit to see through the doors at each end to help prevent the rabbit from feeling cornered, because it could see out the door in front of it the rabbit could see in front of it, and thus not feel cornered from an escape.

The open view at both ends of the trap also allowed us to see which end of the trap the rabbit was facing which was to allow you to reach into the trap from either end when a rabbit had been caught. You didn’t want to reach into the trap from the end that the rabbit was facing, because the rabbit would bite you in self defense when it felt that it was cornered, with no means to retreat from you. These animals, if in the cafeteria, were a bit more dangerous, than the rabbits in the traps, but you get the picture.

This situation we were facing, is the reason we are paid to perform our duties as police officers and if the perpetrators were confronted they were trapped with no avenue of escape from us, but we had no obligation to retreat from arresting them.

This was a situation where any subject encountered should be confronted at gunpoint, and any disregard of our instructions could not be tolerated.

They should be told to Freeze, and Don’t move and empty their hands or show your hands slowly and to get down on the floor face down, with your hands over their head.

The person should first, be searched and then, be handcuffed with their hands behind their back, while being covered, at gunpoint by the assisting officer, in the search.

Police officers are trained in the Police Academy, and in various in-service training classes in relationship to confronting a person to facilitate an arrest" or to make an investigative stop of a person to inquire about their behavior that is suspicious to a police officer, that there may be criminal activity afoot, and the person is suspected of being armed. When you approach such a person, as a police officer, to arrest or stop them, the person being arrested or stopped will usually submit to your presence and authority without the need to lay hands on them. You can perform a pat down through their outer garments, for weapons for the officer’s safety, and to apply cuffs for the officer’s and the public’s safety. You should have an assist officer on the scene if possible, during any arrest that is taking place or during an investigative stop, and you should call dispatch and notify where the investigative stop is taking place.

Your verbal commands are usually all that is necessary to affect the arrest or investigative stop, and cuff, and search them, for any weapon they may have, for your protection, while placing the subject in a safe position that will allow you to react and protect yourself if the need arises. Remember the officer has a reasonable belief, that criminal activity has occurred or is about to occur.

Four victims, three apparently dead, the fourth victim with serious injuries, or deadly gunshot wounds was certainly a probable cause, to believe a crime had been committed, and whoever committed this crime was dangerous to our safety.

You must control the movement of the individual’s hands and feet and their posture such as a fighting stance, clinched fists, hand movements, that may be an attempt, to get to a weapon (including the officer’s), pugilistic stances, foot positions, that allow a kick strikes.

You must keep your personal safety in mind, so you should conduct a pat down of the outer clothing of the individual being stopped and if you have any reason to suspect as a police officer that the subject is armed and whoever did this was definitely armed and dangerous to anyone who approached them.

The individual who is stopped should be placed in a physical position that makes an attack difficult to successfully be launched against the officer while the pat down is conducted while watching the person’s hands and feet for any attack that may come from the individual.

If the individual resists your attempt to stop them while you are acting as a police officer you have no obligation to stop affecting the arrest or stop and you are authorized to use such force as necessary to affect such arrest or make the stop including use of deadly force to protect yourself or another person from death or serious injury.

Some persons will only need to have to be told by you to stop and you will not need to place your hands on them to put them in position to search and apply handcuffs and to place them under arrest or to control them during the investigative stop but, you will not need to use the infliction of pain for compliance to your instructions.

They will usually respond to your verbal instructions to affect the arrest or make the inquiry as to what their actions are such as Who? What? When? Why? or How? they have business or a reason to be doing whatever caused you as a police officer to believe that criminal activity may be afoot but you must stay at the ready to apply pain for compliance to your instructions in the event they suddenly decide to resist by disabling you while you’re effecting their arrest.

These questions are very much like the person on guard duty in the military are required to ask people who are trying to enter an area that they are guarding or a private watchman who requires you to show identification and state your business or who are you here to see, to that person being challenged about what business they have with, before allowing that person to enter the property that they are guarding.

We, as police officers, are acting in proxy for the citizens of the community that we are guarding by stating Halt! Who goes there! State your business! and Identify yourself!

This is the same power as our citizens have to inquire what business you have being on their property or curtledge that surrounds the business or home. The private property interests of the owner of private property and the public’s property interest of the public’s property is what we are commissioned to protect and is also a part of our oath of office to protect persons and their property and the governmental entities’ property of which we are employed.

This stems from the private person’s right to protect their property and the public’s right to do so, and just like the private property owner’s right to stop anyone from entering or trespassing on his property that he owns, from persons entering the property that surrounds their home, for their right to protect their private property and the government’s property from being trespassed.

As police officers, when we are acting based on our probable cause to believe that a crime is happening or may be happening or on our reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to happen, we have the right and duty to inquire about possible unlawful behavior based on the City ordinances and State laws, and federal laws which we have sworn to enforce and to protect the public’s safety, we have the right to stop and inquire about persons intent, based on the actions of persons that are suspicious to us as police officers, that may be illegal, especially after dark.

Some other persons may try to run or to fight you to escape the arrest or the stop and in such instances you as a police officer will need to physically subdue them with actions that administer pain (Non lethal force) on them, pain that causes them to stop resisting so that they will submit and allow you to affect the arrest or stop, search them and cuff them for their and your protection, in return for your ceasing the application of the non lethal force action that created their pain.

Others may resist the arrest, with deadly force or such force that may cause death or serious injury to yourself or another person. The resistance usually comes swiftly and without specific warning, that can cause serious injury to the officer.

In such cases it is permissible to use deadly force to protect yourself from such serious injury or to defend others from such serious injury from a person using such force or trying to cause serious physical injury.

There is no required progression through the described levels of force spectrum, before using deadly force, although some times there is a progression.

The progression of levels of force during an arrest or stop of persons are:

a person’s submission to the officers presence,

a person’s submission to the officer’s verbal commands,

a person’s submission to the officer’s application of non-lethal pain,

a person’s submission to the officer’s attempt by stopping their resistance, in response to the pain that is being applied by the officer,

in order to stop that application of non-lethal pain or force

by submission to the officers request to stop and lastly,

if the situation does not permit the officer to safely approach the suspect without having to use deadly force, to defend himself. The officer is allowed the use of deadly force, in self defense for the officer or the public’s protection from the deadly force used by the person being arrested, by you the officer, who is making the arrest or stop or submission.

The progression through the levels of force are determined by the actions taken by the individual against the officer’s attempts to detain the person being stopped or arrested. The officer must use force that overcomes the force of the resistance and that force is usually required to be a level above the force being used against us.

It can begin immediately at the level of deadly force, if the individual is resisting at a level of force, that could result in serious physical injury to the officer or other members of the public.

Some Police agencies have limited the use of deadly force that is being used against only the officer making the arrest and not against the public or to self defense only, which may present potential problems, with the use of police snipers shooting a criminal holding another person hostage, to demand release for the criminal, if the department doesn’t have a separate procedure, when the officer is a police sniper, dealing with hostage situations.

The criminal or person being arrested or questioned sets these perimeters by their actions and sometimes immediate deadly force is appropriate for the officer’s or the public’s safety. There is no such thing as a routine arrest, because all arrests have the potential of injury to the officer, the public or the arrestee, until after the arrest has been made, and the suspect is searched and properly restrained.

The non-violent submission that most often occurs is when the police officer and the suspect both know that the offense that the arrest is being made, is minor and probably will not result in a lengthy incarceration, and as the seriousness of the offense and the likelihood of extended loss of the arrestee’s freedom increases, the more likely the incentive an arrestee has to flee or to physically attack the officer to make good their escape.

These arrest situations with the use of deadly force, where criminals try to flee from our constitutionally authorized powers to arrest or question individuals, who display behaviors of force all the way from force to restrain to deadly force to stop an individual, and the different levels of force used by us as police officers is determined, by the actions of the person being stopped or arrested.

Situations where force is needed, are the arrests and stops are the situations that police officers get paid to perform. If the criminals would always submit to our presence and verbal requests, anyone could do our job.

Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world, and the people who have committed a crime, need to be apprehended and brought before the court and tried in a court of law for their transgressions, don’t always submit voluntarily to our requests when we try to stop them, and they do whatever they need to do to avoid us from making the arrest that is needed.

We must use whatever force that is necessary to stop them to affect the arrest and this use of force situations can go directly to using deadly force, depending on the arrestee’s actions and the officer’s reasonable perceptions of the offenders’ actions and the failure to react to the actions being used against the officer to use deadly force against us, can be the difference of living or dying of the officer or the suspect who is being confronted.

When police officers in Missouri, have probable cause to believe that a crime is being/or has been committed, and the offender is in our presence. we have no obligation to withdraw from making a physical arrest.

And if the offender resists with force that may cause serious injury or death to us or other members of the public, we can use deadly force to affect that arrest to protect ourselves or members of the public from such serious injury or death.

These arrest situations are why police departments exist and also why we are paid to perform our duties as police officers and the public doesn’t expect us as police officers to lose in these confrontations with persons who are resisting our lawful authority and we police officers expect to go home when our tour of duty ends.

Most deadly attacks on police officers occur suddenly, and without a specific warning and with the immediate use of deadly force being used against us to escape being taken onto the custody of the officer.

Sometimes the offender waits, until he feels he can successfully overpower the officer, by killing or disabling the officer immediately. This deadly attack to resist arrest can occur as the officer is approaching the subject before any words are exchanged such as while the officer is exiting his vehicle or approaching the suspect and the offenders act very quickly immediately using deadly force when they feel the situation presents itself during the arrest. Much like the Blitz Rapist who suddenly approaches the victims with sudden deadly force and then does whatever they want to do with their victim. The only difference in the deadly resisting arrest, is that the perpetrator immediately escapes the victim officer, after the sudden attack on the officer.

Other offenders test the officers’ resolve to use force to control them, by not following simple requests of the officer in order to see the officers response to their failure to follow the directions, and if the officer fails to address these failures to follow directions, the offender will continue to disobey the officer and place their self in a position from which to initiate their attack and escape from the officer.

Therefore, officers must control the offenders actions movement, and not allow any disregard to our instructions that are given to the individuals, that we stop to question or to arrest the individual, if we have probable cause to believe the individual is committing or has committed a crime.

Example: If the officer tells the offender to stand at a specific location or to stay in the car or to get out of the car and the offender disregards these instructions or other instructions, the officer must exert his or her control on the offender with a higher level of force, Non-lethal force, i.e. pepper spray, stun gun, wrist lock, nightstick, etc., the officer must immediately be prepared to take physical action to protect themselves.

The officer must not ignore any disregard of the officers instructions by the person being stopped or confronted for making an arrest. The failure of the officer to increase their degree of control of force on the subjects that they are stopping when their instructions are not obeyed and that failure to control the subject could very well make the difference between living and dying of the officer or the public.

I co-hosted, a Law Enforcement Officer’s Supervisors Seminar, concerning the mandatory wearing of soft body armor for police officers, while they are performing patrol and all other police duties and what level of ballistic protection should be mandatory to be worn by the agency patrol personnel.

We developed the level of protection to be worn specifically by the uniformed patrol officer while they were on preventive patrol.

The law enforcement officials set the level of protection which was stated as: Police officers on patrol must be at a minimum level of protection by soft body armor that will stop the penetration of the weapon and ammunition, that we issue to our police patrol officers.

This level of stopping the penetration of projectiles should increase as the officers’ duties require him to carry weapons of higher penetration levels. Tactical Units, Bomb Squads, need the higher protection levels against penetration because of the weapons that they carry and encounter in the performance of their duties.

I worked with E.I. du Pont de Nemours, the Company, commonly referred to as Dupont, to co-host a seminar at the Green Tree Hotel Complex located in Chesterfield, Missouri for the Missouri Police Chiefs, and Sheriffs, and Law Enforcement supervisory officers, from the Midwestern States Region of the Uniform Crime Reporting Area, in the United States of America. They were in attendance to study and to set the recommended level of protection, of the International Association of the Chiefs of Police, that should be provided for our patrol officers who perform routine patrol duties for our police officers. Based on. the best practices, as recommended by the International Police Chief’s Association and the Missouri Chief’s of Police Association.

Dupont, brought numerous police officers, who were actual survivors of shootings by offenders or individual’s exhibiting suspicious behavior that led the officer to believe that those suspected of criminal activity may be afoot by them during the performance of the duties while they were wearing protective soft body armor. These survivors were participants in the seminar. They shared their thoughts, and spoke of their experience of being shot in the line of duty. I personally asked each of the surviving officers to tell me, what they could recall thinking at the time they knew that the offender was actually trying to kill them.

Some officers couldn’t recall what their thoughts were at the time the shooting occurred, but many officers could recall their thoughts. Some officers said the attack occurred so fast that they had no time to think about what was happening, until after they had been shot by the offender.

The officers who could recall their thoughts stated, they were in a state of denial, and many stated they were thinking, this isn’t happening, when the deadly assault was in fact happening to them. One officer, said he actually saw the cylinder rotating on the gun being used to shoot him, and still couldn’t react, because of his denial of what was happening.

One of Maurice Oscar Byrd’s shooting victims, Leon Edward Maynor, a good samaritan, who survived a shoot out with Byrd in Savannah, Georgia, while attempting to stop Byrd after he had committed an armed robbery at Ed’s Package Shop, located on the corner of Montgomery Street and Pennsylvania Street, in Savannah, Georgia.

Leon Edward Maynor would relate to me and Savannah Law Enforcement Officers, he too "could see the cylinder rotating, as he was being shot by Byrd," but the weapon that Maynor had on his person was in his pocket, and it got stuck by the hammer getting caught by his pocket and when he tried to draw his weapon from his pocket, was preventing him from being able to draw the weapon when he saw that Byrd was actually shooting him. There weren’t many individuals who survived a shooting encounter with Byrd that survived.

This gives a clear example: of the need to select a method to carry your weapon in a manner that allows you to access the weapon instantly and with reliable method for quick reliable access in the event the person being confronted needs to be stopped with your weapon if the need arises.

All of these officers brought to the seminar by Dupont, were survivors of being shot, while performing police patrol duties, because of the soft body armor they were wearing when they were shot.

This is a good example: of empirical learning, also known as, learning based on experience or scientific experiments, rather than, learning based on theory, and that, the wearing soft body armor while performing patrol duties, does save police officer’s lives, based on the experience of these survivors, of being shot, while on patrol for the agencies they worked as police officers.

The number of officers interviewed said that they couldn’t believe they were actually being shot when the offender was actually shooting them, indicates a significant number of officers experiencing denial at the time of their shooting by offenders of the law.

Denial: in psychology: is a refusal to accept the unpleasant truth about a situation or admit what you are feeling. It is a coping mechanism, with situations, that we don’t want to actually face or to admit that we face.

This type of coping can very likely result in the officer’s death or serious injury. Many officers choose to block out of their thoughts in situations that are difficult to deal with concerning their job. This coping mechanism can contribute to our inability to act reflexively to dangerous situations that we face on the job.

Reflexive actions: are reactions to stimuli that doesn’t go all the way to our brain such as, the reaction to hot object that causes a conditioned reflex that is stopped at the hypothalamus of the brain stem, with an automatic or reflexive muscle reaction to a stimulus such as to heat, when heat is sensed by the body of a person that has been sensitized to the burning, caused from a prior touching of a heated object.

The body’s reaction becomes automated or sensitized to react in an automated reflex at the hypothalamus as the muscles automatically move away from hot objects when the heat is sensed in the hypothalamus after being sensitized (burned), from a prior from touching a heated object.

We need to react to shooting situations with our natural instincts for survival. Obviously, we can’t expect our officers to develop the sensitized reaction by letting them be shot while on patrol. Because this instinct for survival is developed from our personal experience, or the personal experience of our peer’s experience, in real life situations, in dealing with the violent behavior of the violent people in our society.

Personal survival is paramount to all police officers. Sensitization, can be created in training classes that can develop reflexive responses to situations that officers have faced in real life while performing police functions.

These real life situations can be recreated by training, using actors or role players to simulate situations that other police officers have actually experienced. The police officers are made to react to situations already experienced by a police officer, by using video tape recreations of situations of other officers, have experienced, where we react to situations referred to Shoot or don’t Shoot arrest situations. This training gives the officers a close to real life experience in dealing with encounters that another officer actually faced while performing their police duties. The officers first actual experience of an attack or resisting arrest on their life, or resisting arrest isn’t a real situation, that could possibly be their last such experience.

Their first time they experience an attack on their life, while performing an arrest or a stop on suspicion, that criminal activity is afoot is a situation as a police officer, can be a fatal experience.

We can and also train using role playing, with blank ammunition being used by the officers and using actors to recreate actual situations that officers faced, or by use of the Video Simulator to reproduce situations that are based on actual police situations that have been experienced by other officers in the field. Using simulation weapons and going through real life like experiences or scenarios.

The review of Police Officer’s actions of their

Reviews for Murder At Pope's Cafeteria

[David Ratner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am looking to connect with Ronald Martin, I'm the police officer that ran down Maurice Oscar Byrd after the shooting and robbery in Savannah, Ga. I'm the officer pictured with Byrd taking him to jail.
I can be reached at [e-mail]
Thanks.

[Sherry Weisser Voegtli · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Why did he never talk to us. The ones who found them. They were our coworkers. Why didn’t you talk to us