Citizens Need to Know
NYPD Deputy Chief Steve Bonano
Steve Bonano, a highly decorated deputy chief with the NYPD, died this past weekend from a rare but lethal cancer his doctors say was directly related to his work at Ground Zero after the attacks of September 11. At that time, Steve was the commander of the Department’s Emergency Service Unit, and he was at Ground Zero for weeks and months after the attack.
Steve was the focus of Chapter 7 in my book, Brave Hearts: Extraordinary Stories of Pride, Pain and Courage, so I had a lot of material and photos about his life and career which I used to put together this tribute to him. The other secondary goal here is to get the word out about the work our law enforcement officers do for us. So far over 40,000 people have “viewed” the story on the APB website, and there have been hundreds of “shares,” “likes,” etc. on Facebook.
Bonano’s story is every cop’s story, and now more than ever, with so many threats coming at us from all directions, we need to get these stories out to the public so they better understand what your members and the hundreds and thousands of other officers out there do to keep people safe. We have to do a better job telling the true story of America’s law enforcement heroes.
One idea is to figure out which of your local reporters is the best writer, call them up, and see if they would like to do a series of feature stories on some of your exceptional members—every police union has many. The reason that your work is the focus of so many television programs and films is that your stories are so gripping and you all are an incredibly interesting, brave, and complicated group of people. It’s time to reach out to the people who have the skills to tell your stories and start getting them out there.
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