The death of anyone is not something to be ignored. When the deceased is a young person, it is even more tragic.
I have heard that a patrol cop’s days can go by in tedium and boredom, but that boredom could become dangerous and life changing in a second. Police see the worst moments of a person’s life and only occasionally the best. They are thrown into situations that the rest of us do everything to avoid. When things go wrong, cops must respond.
That is what happened the other night on East 10th Street in East Stuart. An officer responded in about a minute to a call of a shooting. What the cop found was a teenager bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds. As other officers and Stuart Fire/Rescue raced to the scene, there was apparently some in the crowd who were hostile to the responders. Dealing with that is part of their jobs.
An officer applied a tourniquet and was trying to stop the kid from bleeding out. The victim was rushed to Guy Davis field where he was then taken by helicopter to a trauma center. The victim, Devone Delancy, died.
Some would call these cops and emergency services personnel heroes. I wouldn’t because they were just doing their jobs. They were doing those jobs under very stressful circumstances, but those were jobs they chose to take and perform knowing full well that they could be thrown into this type of situation at any moment.
While I was in a nice restaurant with my wife eating dinner, these guys were tending to a victim of violence laying in the street. Some in the crowd were trying to provoke trouble, but they failed. There were probably some in the crowd who witnessed the incident but won’t say a word to the police trying to find justice for the police and his family while, at the same time, cursing them for instances like this occurring.
As a resident of Stuart, I have interacted with the officers. When I was a city commissioner, I did so more often. In my experience, they want to do their jobs and make it through their shifts. Some go far beyond their duty and are active in the community. The men and women of Stuart PD are not heroes. Yet at times they perform heroically. Last Wednesday night was one of those times.
