With the drum beat emanating from anti-police crazy choirs, superbly humane constructs from America’s cops continue to counter the propaganda and blatant lies perpetuated by people who harbor hateful hearts and personal agendas, primarily regarding reckless pols and their mouthy pals.
Yet despite the tsunami of din, law enforcement officers continue to forge forward and rush in to salvage souls enduring the most unspeakable circumstances.
Following is a horrific saga survived by a young boy whose saviors are that of a law enforcement family whose hearts opened wide and lavished love to this child who escaped a homicidal biological father.
The young boy, Ronnie, was extremely fortunate to have survived; his mother and 9-year-old non-verbal sister were fatalities in the maniacal scenario which LEOs addressed and now carry with them for the remainder of their lives.
Recently, a trial transpired in Tampa whereby Ronnie’s assailant father and namesake, Ronnie Oneal III, represented himself as the defendant accused of double-murder, attempted murder of Ronnie, and torching the family home.
As prosecutor Ronald Gale addressed the jury, reminding them to deliberate on the facts, he conveyed, “This has been a very emotional case, and the evidence and testimony has been by turns gruesome and disturbing and just heartbreaking,”
Ronnie’s father’s legal self-representation didn’t serve him well, resulting in the jury’s unanimous decision to convict a murderer who made a mockery of the court and portrayed the monstrous persona of a deranged man who snatched two lives before stabbing Ronnie, setting him ablaze, and leaving him for dead.
Now, Ronnie’s assailant dad is spending consecutive multiple life terms in state prison.
I watched much of that trial and kept pondering how the beauty of constitutional rights can sometimes be twisted by, well…twisted individuals. Enough about the bad guy…on to the good guy —a deputy sheriff— and his heartfelt response to an atrocious experience suffered by a youngster.
Hillsborough County Deputy Mike Blair launches our story with, “For us, he’s our family.”
Per the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s website, “On March 18, 2018, Ronnie’s mother and 9-year-old sister were murdered at the hands of his father. Corporal Mike Blair responded to the scene. He met Ronnie for the first time at the hospital a few weeks later.
“Ronnie asked Corporal Blair to stay and watch a movie with him. That’s when a new chapter started for both Ronnie and the Blair family.
“Five months later, the Blairs went from a family of seven to eight when Corporal Blair adopted Ronnie.
“For the first time, the Blairs are sharing their story,” and, albeit bittersweet, it’s a beauty:
With that poignant episode among myriad others depicting America’s courageous police warriors working the mean streets, we are left with vexation over the abject hate and deafening defiance regarding law-and-order principles among some segments of our society. Indeed, much of the headway for hatred emanates from certain political winds, with unrelenting smoke and mirrors projecting falsities like a Hollywood flick…except it is real, tragically real.
I wonder the young impressionable mind of a then-8-year-old boy whose mom and sister were slain at their home, whose father was in custody for these unimaginable actions, a child who was almost a third body chalked off at the crime scene.
Instead, he was sent an angel, one with a silver star among thousands of first responders just like him at the sheriff’s office.
Lain up in a Tampa hospital and tended to by nurses and doctors, Ronnie, in all this maelstrom no child should even remotely suffer, gravitated to a deputy who was circling back and following up on a sordid case…like cops do.
It strikes me as no coincidence how the aftermath played out.
Having been in those duty boots, sworn and non-sworn (dispatchers) law enforcement personnel immerse introspectively, wondering What else could be done for those victims?
So many times I found myself endeavoring when to take moments to reach out to crime victims whose lives were significantly jarred…yet conflictingly engaged in responding from call to call, the victims multiplying per shift. Often, it seemed an insurmountable task (desire) to reach out to prior saves and check on their recovery, welfare, and needs. It was also my need—closure is not only for victims.
As a field training officer, I forged in my police rookies during every shift to always take the time to analyze each call, imagine the people on scene and how they felt, and what could have been implemented differently or additionally. Hindsight is 20/20, and it can be a fantastic professor enabling a cop to write his/her own textbook for future use on behalf of the public. Experience 101 is true grit and forthright.
Rather difficult to explain, but it remains one of the things I miss most when I reminisce in retirement, peering back and hoping all victims made it through well enough.
Deputy Blair and his family are categorically reflective of the caring nature among those in American society whose collective know the battles out there among innocents and depraved individuals who prey upon them—in Ronnie’s case, absolutely inexplicable circumstances.
(Photo courtesy of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.)
Although I do not personally know Deputy Blair and his family, I know Ronnie is in good hands.
Much more imperatively, although Ronnie acknowledges he now has various “different” things in life, he attests, “I am safe, I am loved, and I am part of this family.”
Not sure if you caught it in the brief video or not, but Sheriff Chad Chronister deemed himself an uncle…to Ronnie.
Character of cops…