Brotherhood For The Fallen Suffolk County
NEWS
LATEST NEWS
2021 Back the Blue Shoot Out!
On June 12th and 13th, the Brotherhood for the Fallen Suffolk County was honored to be a part of the 2021 Back the Blue Shoot Out.
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We would like to thank Todd Miller and Gregory Caggiano from Miller & Caggiano, LLP for sponsoring this event.
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We would also like to thank Larry Falkman, Anthony Buonagurio, and Will Faller for organizing this event and their generous donation from the money raised.
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Another special thank you to the Suffolk County Detectives Association for their additional contribution which will help us to continue our mission. #backtheblue
Great News !
Classmates Victoria Holtje and Thomas Killeen just got back the results of a DECA States competition they were participants in. They placed 4th in the state with their Brotherhood Fundraising Project and had the highest scoring presentation. They qualified to compete at the national competition in Nashville this April!
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DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) is an association of marketing students that encourages the development of business and leadership skills through academic conferences and competitions.
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In total, Thomas and Victoria raised $3000 for the BFTF!
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See our BENEFACTORS tab for an article about their efforts.
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We are very proud of both of you and are grateful to be the recipient of your outstanding hard work and generosity.
SUCCESS! Battle at the Barn Results
THANK YOU!
With your support we were able to raise over $22,000 for future deployments from the Islanders vs Bruins Battle at the Barn event.
This includes all the ticket sales, event day t-shirt, and hockey jersey sales, Islander autographed jersey raffle, official 50/50 at the game run by the Islanders, and straight donations received that day.
After the NHL game, the SCPD hockey team took on the Boston PD team and defeated them 5-1.
It was a great game and surely a lot of fun for the guys to play in an NHL arena!
Thanks to the SCPD Hockey Team for coming out to represent the SCPD and support the BFTF.
Special thanks to our volunteers who worked the entire day to assist us with the 50/50, merchandise sales, and the Islander hockey jersey raffle. You were all awesome and your efforts are greatly appreciated.
What a great group of people.
Charlie Abbene
Aleksa Klimas-Mikalauskas
Sandy Kyrkostas
Chris Kyrkostas
Tim Morris
Vinny O’Shaughnessy
Bill Rathjen
Steven Rathjen
Luke Rise
James Tobin
Honorable mention to Lisa Prudenti who came all the way from Virginia and couldn’t help but work the merchandise table in the morning!
The winner of the autographed Islander jersey was Rich Guanci. Congratulations!
5th Precinct Christmas Tree of Remembrance
A huge thank you and great job to the men and women of the 5th Precinct and the young men and women of the Police Explorers for all of the hard work put into this beautiful Christmas Tree of Remembrance. Each ornament has the name of one of the Police Officers we have lost in the line of duty across the USA in 2019. Special thanks to PO Eileen Emiddio for sharing.
New York Mets wearing BFTF Gear!
Here are NY Mets pitching greats Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz showing their support by wearing BFTF gear!
Thank you, gentlemen.
Let's go Mets!
BFTF Photo Contest
The Chicago Chapter is running this contest.
Please see the below flyer for details.
Membership Drive
Please join the
Brotherhood For The Fallen, Suffolk County NY
chapter today!
Sign up a co-worker!
(Full-size printable form below)
Please help us recruit some new members.
We currently have approximately 60% of the sworn personnel of the SCPD and growing.
Let's get to 100%
We also have members of the following departments listed alphabetically:
Amityville, Asharoken, Deputy Sheriffs, District Attorney Office, East Hampton Village, Head of the Harbor, Huntington Bay, Lloyd Harbor, Nissequogue, Northport, Ocean Beach, Old Field, Park Rangers, Riverhead, Smithtown Public Safety, Southampton Town, Southampton Village, Southold, and SUNY PD Stonybrook.
The form is below and available on our website.
Please forward completed forms to any board member or via USPS.
Never deployed?
We regularly have trouble filling these deployments with people who haven't yet traveled. So please reply even if you think it might be filled.
New travelers get priority.
What we do:
We send representatives who attend in uniform the Line of Duty funerals of law enforcement officers who are intentionally killed in the line of duty throughout the country. We also make a monetary donation of $2000 to the family to assist them with immediate expenses.
We pay for the member's travel and lodging. We coordinate with the other BFTF chapters and the local departments when attending the services.
Article in IPA Region # 15 March 2018 Newsletter
This is a nice article that talks about the BFTF by IPA 2nd Vice President and BFTF member, Joe Paladino.
Halloween 2017
This cool jack-o-lantern was made by BFTF member Kevin Foley.
FBI Releases 2016 Preliminary Statistics for Law Enforcement Officers Killed in the Line of Duty
Preliminary statistics released today by the FBI show that 66 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2016. This is an increase of 61 percent when compared with the 41 officers killed in 2015. By region, 30 officers died as a result of criminal acts that occurred in the South, 17 officers in the West, 13 officers in the Midwest, four in the Northeast, and two in Puerto Rico.
At the time the 66 law enforcement officers were fatally wounded:
•17 were ambushed (entrapment/premeditation);
•13 were answering disturbance calls (seven were domestic disturbance calls);
•nine were investigating suspicious persons/circumstances;
•six were engaged in tactical situations;
•five were performing investigative activities;
•four were conducting traffic pursuits/stops;
•three were investigating drug-related matters;
•three were victims of unprovoked attacks;
•one was answering a robbery in progress call or pursuing a robbery suspect(s);
•one was answering a burglary in progress call or pursuing a burglary suspect(s);
•four were attempting other arrests.
Offenders used firearms in 62 of the 66 felonious deaths. These included 37 incidents with handguns, 24 incidents with rifles, and one incident with a shotgun. Four victim officers were killed with vehicles used as weapons.
Of the 66 officers killed, 50 were confirmed to be wearing body armor at the times of the incidents. Fourteen of the 66 slain officers fired their service weapons, and 10 officers attempted to fire their weapons. Three victim officers had their weapons stolen; one officer was killed with his own weapon.
The 66 victim officers died from injuries sustained in 56 separate incidents. Fifty-four of those incidents have been cleared by arrest or exceptional means.
In 2016, an additional 52 officers were killed in line-of-duty accidents, which are officer deaths that were found not to be willful and intentional. This is an increase of 16 percent when compared with the 45 officers who were accidentally killed in 2015. By region, 24 officers died from accidents in the South, 12 in the Midwest, nine in the West, five in the Northeast, and two in Puerto Rico.
Twenty-six of the officers died as a result of automobile accidents, 12 were struck by vehicles, and seven were fatally injured in motorcycle accidents. Three officers died in accidental shootings, two victim officers drowned, one died in an aircraft accident, and one victim officer was fatally injured when thrown from a horse.
Of the 26 officers who died due to automobile accidents, eight were wearing seatbelts. Eleven officers were not wearing seatbelts (five of whom were partially or totally ejected from the vehicles), and seatbelt use was not reported for seven of the officers who were killed in automobile accidents.
Final statistics and complete details will be available in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program’s publication, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2016, which will be published on the FBI website in the fall.
Honored by Blue Lives Matter
Our Friends at the Bluepoint Fire Department
Presidential Executive Order on Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers
Please read the below Executive Order from President Donald Trump.
LINK
SCPD Heroes Painting
The Origin of the Suffolk County Chapter of the Brotherhood For The Fallen
In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln drafted a letter to a grieving mother, Mrs. Bixby, who had recently lost all of her sons in battle during the American Civil War. He wrote, “I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” While the origin of this phrase was born within a military context, it rings true within our cherished law enforcement community as well.
In 2010 members of the Chicago Police Department organized a group whose sole mission was to help “assuage the anguish” of the loved ones of police officers who have paid the ultimate “sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” They called this new organization the Brotherhood for the Fallen and recruited fellow officers to share in their mission. They tasked themselves with sending a uniformed delegation to the funerals of police officers in the United States who were murdered in the line of duty, and to help support those officers’ families financially, and emotionally. Their humble mission began to grow, and within a few short years police officers from the Aurora Colorado Police Department, the New York City Police Department, the Fort Worth Police Department, and our Suffolk County Police Department, joined the cause.
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The Suffolk County Police Chapter was born after a number of members came together in August of 2015 and attended the funeral of Deputy Darren Goforth of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Houston, Texas. Members of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office had met members of the Suffolk County Police Department when they were in the New York area to attend the funerals of New York City Police Department Police Officer Ramos and Liu, who were ambushed and killed in December of 2014. Having connected with these colleagues from Texas during their stay in New York, members of our department organized the trip to repay the honor when one of their brethren was killed.
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While in attendance at the funeral, a number of members from the Suffolk County Police Department happened upon the Brotherhood For the Fallen delegation from the Chicago Police Department and learned about their honorable mission. Upon returning to Suffolk County and talking with other officers, it was evident that many of our colleagues in Suffolk County happen to travel to line of duty death funerals regularly, and on their own accord. This was further cemented when in July of 2016, nearly thirty members of the Suffolk County Police Department, with the help and support of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association, traveled to the Dallas, Texas area to attend the funeral of the five slain police officers murdered in the wake of anti-police protests.
Following this tragedy, members of the Suffolk County Police Department expounded on this movement and the Brotherhood for the Fallen Suffolk County Chapter was born in August of 2016. Since that time our ranks have swelled to over 800 members and we enjoy the full support, and backing, of the upper echelon members of the Suffolk County Police Department, the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association, as well as other union-related and fraternal organizations within the department. We have embraced the simple yet monumental mission that those officers from Chicago started back in 2010, and attend the funerals of officers murdered in the line of duty within the United States. Our uniformed delegation also presents the family of the deceased with a monetary donation to help offset the economic burden that often accompanies these tragedies.
The Brotherhood for the Fallen Suffolk County is a not for profit organization whose funding is based on membership dues, merchandise sales, fundraisers, and most importantly, donations. Like any Police Department mission, our success lies within our working relationship with our local communities, and we count on their generosity to help sustain our mission. We are hopeful that our mission will continue to be realized through the hard work and philanthropy of our members, and communities, and we hope to see this organization continue to grow in other jurisdictions on the national stage.
