Fallen Hero Leaves Behind Wife and Children
This article is a feature piece about a fallen police officer who was killed in the line of duty, leaving behind a wife and two children. The article also follows the increasing trend of car-related police officer deaths in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Fire chief Al Schwartz, 42, answered a phone call on June 27, 2008, that he said devastated him. One of his volunteer firefighters, who doubled as a Prince George’s County, Maryland, police officer, died after a suspect ran over him in a pickup truck, crushing his chest.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” Schwartz said.
Cpl. Richard Findley, posthumously promoted to sergeant, blocked a stolen pickup with his cruiser and ran toward the suspects to arrest them, said Findley’s supervisor of two years, Sgt. Jeff Schreiver.
“The [driver] didn’t want to go to jail so he drove toward [Findley],” Schreiver said. “Richard fired his handgun several times in defense of his life and to stop the guy, and [the driver] drove right over him.”
The number of police officer deaths involving cars has increased in Prince George’s County. In the last 16 years, three deaths have been by gunfire and five have been by car, according to The Officer Down Memorial Page, a website devoted to honoring the lives of fallen police officers.
Twenty-five officers have died in Prince George’s County in 75 years, and seven of those were car-related, said Dean Jones, first vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, lodge 89.
One of those officers responded to a call when he lost control of his car and crashed, causing his car to catch on fire, Schreiver said.
71 percent of the seven car-related deaths have been in the last two decades.
This number is low in respect to Baltimore city, Jones said.
But according to The Officer Down Memorial Page, the number is higher in Prince George’s County than in Anne Arundel County with no car-related deaths in the last 20 years or Montgomery County with four.
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