Originally Posted by
BehindBlueI's
I am the only supervisor working for my shift on Thanksgiving. Since I've been on this shift I, along with my wife, have provided a Thanksgiving dinner for the shift. I fully intended to do so this year.
Now roughly 10% of our officers and one of four sergeants are out on quarantine with either positive tests or quarantined due to exposure until tests come back. That's pretty consistent across the department as I understand it. Few got exposed at work except from other officers. Nurse spouses seem to be the highest risk factor, and cops and nurses seem to marry pretty regularly.
I sent out an email today that, with regret, I am cancelling our Thanksgiving dinner. Do not come to roll call. Report directly to beat.
And it sucks. I get that. The officers like it and I like to do it. My family likes to come and be present. But we have a responsibility to have the manpower available to effectively police the city and to back each other up. The odds of anyone dying are damn near zero, but the odds of someone going to are now-taxed hospitals are not. We're being warned that diversions to outlying hospitals are imminent. So that's why I made the decision I made. I'm not going to have an incident take down nearly half the shift and I'm not going to add to the burden at hospitals. And I still regret it.