During Women’s History Month, which runs throughout the entirety of March, International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 8, and law enforcement-centric social media sites populated with a bittersweet mix of bravado exuded by female cops who continually confront head-on the challenges inherent in policing.
As written about in a previous post titled “’Move Over Law’ and Life in the Fast Lane,” Massachusetts State Police Trooper Tamar Bucci stopped to aid a stranded motorist on an interstate. In doing so, Trooper Bucci was killed by a tractor-trailer tanker reportedly hauling 10,000 gallons of fuel. Scores of brother/sister law enforcement officers from local and distant jurisdictions stood at attention for yet another police funeral mass and burial proceeding.
(Photo courtesy of the Massachusetts State Police.)
I came across the photograph you see above, depicting six female pallbearers, all state troopers with whom Trooper Bucci worked the highways and byways. As often is the case in such a horrific episode, personal details emerge after life-ending scenarios occur. You see, one day before Trooper Bucci stopped to help that disabled motorist, she celebrated her 34th birthday.
One of the last people to attend to Trooper Bucci, in her final moments of 34 years and one day of life, happened to be a local cop from the Stoneham Police Department. That Stoneham officer pulled her away from the twisted wreckage and performed CPR before EMS staff arrived and ambulated her to a hospital, where she succumbed to her traumatic injuries.
This cop-to-cop happenstance reminds us of the varied mutual aid agreements forged among America’s law enforcement agencies. These covenants essentially align cops from all walks of life, working for any of the 18,500 or so police entities throughout the United States, collectively pledged to lend resources in the form of equipment and/or staffing, ultimately backing one another in performance of duties ranging from innocuous to menacing.
But this occasion was pure coincidence that a fellow officer was in proximity, driving by, and came upon the morose scene of a state trooper clinging to life. From what I understand, the stranded motorist was uninjured. Imagine the mindset of that person today and forever…
Any cop finding themselves in the heat of battle taking place on the brink elates with the sound of approaching wails of police sirens. I was there too many times, and because of said reinforcements, I am alive to relive/attest close calls.
In the case of Trooper Bucci, time to receive medical care after absorbing a heavy brunt tolled enormously, to no avail despite the Stoneham cop, EMS workers, and hospital ER staff. If only…
The perils do not subside. The hits keep on coming. Yet sometimes those close calls somehow evolve with lifelong scars, both physical and mental.
Well south of where Trooper Bucci perished, another female cop was dutifully prepared to lay down her life for others over the weekend. This one was in my neck of the woods…
This harrowing incident involved a female trooper with the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP). A reportedly intoxicated driver sped the wrong way toward a closed bridge upon which were thousands of runners and spectators attending the Armed Forces Family Foundation Skyway 10K Race.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge was the venue, the scene of almost utter catastrophe. Historically, the Skyway is also a notorious scene for Tampa Bay area police responding to distraught people who attempt suicide, hence why a suicide-specific real-time report is available for motorists navigating the expanse. Florida Highway Patrol troopers are stationed there routinely.
The bridge has one of the steepest inclines I’ve ever climbed. It was engineered with a steep crest to accommodate lofty cruise liners and highly stacked cargo ships floating underneath its 430-foot height clearance in the middle.
Given the Skyway spans across Tampa Bay connecting three counties (Hillsborough County has responsibility for the northern side, up to the middle; Manatee County has the southern side, up to the middle; Pinellas County has both the southern and northern lanes from the western portion, up to the middle), thus an intersection of multiple state police, sheriffs, and municipal law enforcement agencies enabling the mutual aid covenant we mentioned.
FHP covers the bridge’s entirety (otherwise mapped as Interstate 275) since it has statewide jurisdictional authority. (Ever have the misfortune to be involved in a traffic crash at an intersection split by two or more law enforcement agencies? My city shared a major intersection with three other police entities, and the involved parties were perplexed/perturbed by an officer stating the wreck was the responsibility of [blank] police, based on exactly where the crash occurred. Cops cover only where their resident tax dollars start/end aka “city limits” or “county line.”)
Back to our FHP hero saving the day and multiple lives…by intersecting hers in the trajectory of absolute harrow. This incident trends with the phenom involving Tampa Bay’s wrong-way drivers, and LEOS stopping them in their tracks, some sacrificing their own lives to preserve others from certain death.
The intoxicated driver in the latest horrific spectacle blew by a threshold checkpoint staffed by uniformed LEOs (who radioed ahead), flattened neon orange traffic cones, refused to heed additional stationary cops at the pre-toll funnel, whipped through closed toll booths, and rocketed onward and upward. But a state policewoman halted any further scaling.
FHP Trooper Toni Schuck did what several Tampa Bay-area cops have done in recent years, in similar circumstances. She sighted the barreling car motored by a drunk driver, carefully measured her trajectory, was mindful of the throngs of vulnerable pedestrians not too far behind her FHP SUV cruiser, and ensured that she was the wall to salvage plenty of lives by placing hers in harm’s way.
Notice that the assailing vehicle driver was in view and seemingly dodged one fully marked state trooper’s cruiser, then continued her crazed course toward Trooper Schuck. Also notice Trooper Schuck’s SUV cruiser’s onboard camera recording the entire event. The beauty of in-car cameras captures moments leading up to a hugely anted police action. In this case, it also provides the calculus of a cop whose patrol car adjusted and readjusted seconds before the head-on collision, leaving zero doubt that this brave law enforcement warrior had every intention of stopping this drunk driver in its tracks. A life-saving action indeed.
If you were not informed of the outcome, you’d think one or both vehicle occupants perished in such an ordeal.
Miraculously, both Trooper Schuck and the 52-year-old drunk driver survived the head-on collision. An in-car view of Trooper Schuck unambiguously strategizing and bracing for impact seconds before the ultimate impact with a speeding vehicle sees her eyeglasses fly from her face and her organized equipment in her cruiser tossed like a salad. Absolute warrior!
