In August 1987, Riverside, Illinois Police Officer Tom Weitzel stepped out of his squad car to check a suspicious vehicle parked on the wrong side of the street - no plates, dark tinted windows, door cracked open. Seconds later, a gang member rolled out of the back seat, racked a pump shotgun, and shot Tom at point-blank range.

Tom’s portable radio was cut in half by the blast. He crawled back to his squad, called for help on the in-car radio, and survived... largely because of a bullet-resistant vest his wife had purchased.

But what happened after the shooting would shape the rest of his career: the investigation, the shocking legal loopholes of the time, and the early signs of a system that often fails the very people it asks to run toward danger.

This is Part 1 of Tom Weitzel’s story. Part 2 picks up with the fight for justice and the advocacy Tom took all the way to state lawmakers.

👍 If you support law enforcement stories told with honesty and context, like, subscribe, and share.

🔔 Turn on notifications so you don’t miss Part 2: “Fighting for Justice.”

Check on a car sitting on the wrong side of the street's, dark.

Got one door is open, the vehicle has no plate.

It looks like a beater, four door, green LTD. I don't see anybody in,

but it's got those darkened windows

and I just came upon a car that was illegally parked

gate, it was car, left wheeled the curb, no license plates.

So I got out of the car to go get the VIN number off the front of the

car and see if I could find out who the car was registered to, and as

soon as I stepped out of my vehicle.

10-4.

North River says you have a unit I have a unit over there,

Northgate Court in Northgate,

and started to walk towards the, the other vehicle, the back door

of that car opened up on the driver's side, which was towards the curb.

And, uh, somebody literally rolled out of it almost like a military roll, and

I immediately heard the slide of the shotgun and I was shot, immediately

shot, and it lifted me off the ground

(inaudible).

So I tried to call for help, but my radio had been

cut in half by the shotgun blast.

Where that's off (inaudible) officer been shot,

so I had to crawl back to my squad car.

Use the in-car radio to call for help.

10-4 no riverside near arms has been shot at.

Six 13 in road from 26th first,

and I truly believe that they, if they thought they killed me

in the 10-4, November said you had 10-4.

13. 10-4. Six 15.

River Ambulance here right away.

River said you want mine.

Why is proceed with your quick driver side?

They're code, sir. Lord.

10-4. What's the vehicle?

That description, A green or gray four door got dark windows.

No plates.

There's at least three male white

Tom.

Uh, like so many of the heroes that we have on this podcast, uh,

we welcome you and it's always a story that the hero didn't expect.

You know, it's not guns a blazing and it's not, uh, sirens and chases and all that,

that sometimes define the heroes that appear on, on Heroes Behind the Badge.

It's not a dramatic incident.

It's something that showed up without warning, kind of as part of a normal day.

Every hero has that moment.

You had that moment that showed up without warning, that moment that

reshapes your career, reshapes your life.

And from that story, from that moment, everything else flows.

And yours is that great hero story that that one day in August of

1987 in Riverside, Illinois, on a quiet summer night, things changed.

And from that.

Your life changed and a lot of interesting things have happened.

Our audience loves to hear stories like this, so we'd love you, Tom Weitzel to

step forward, uh, law enforcement veteran.

Riverside, Illinois Police Department, 13 years as the chief of said department,

and, uh, uh, a life of service.

I, I'll let you tell.

I don't wanna take your story 'cause it's a great story and I want you to tell it.

So welcome to Heroes Behind the Badge.

Well, thank you for having me.

Honored to be here.

And, you know, I never considered myself a hero and what you were

alluding to was I was shot in the line of duty and, uh 1987, uh, in August

and Riverside is a small community of 9,000 west of the city, Chicago.

And not that we didn't see crime, but we didn't have really

street crime, so to speak of.

And my incident took place, uh, at three o'clock in the morning.

I was on patrol.

We had say we always had one man patrol cars.

There was no such things in the suburbs as two men and I just came

upon a car that was illegally parked.

It was parked, left wheel, the curb, no license plates.

So I got out of the car to go get the VIN number off the front of the

car and see if I could find out who the car was registered to, and as

soon as I stepped out of my vehicle.

Started to walk towards the, the other vehicle, the back door of

that car opened up on the driver's side, which was towards the curb.

And uh, somebody literally rolled out of it almost like a military roll.

And I immediately heard the slide of the shotgun.

So it was a pump shotgun.

And you know, if you've heard that rack, you know what it is.

And I was shot immediately.

Shot.

And.

It lifted me off the ground and it forced me back and I hit my head

on the bumper of the squad car.

Knocked me out probably for a minute, minute and a half.

When I regained consciousness, the car was, doors were all open, the

offenders were coming from the yard, jumping into the car and fleeing.

I looked down to see if I should return fire and the car was going.

So if I was to return fire, I probably would've just been shooting it randomly

in the middle of the night and probably would've hit homes instead of anybody.

So I tried to call for help, but my radio had been cut in half by the

shotgun blast, so my portable radio, I went over to look at it and the

antenna was completely shattered and the microphone was completely shattered,

so I had to crawl back to my squad car.

Use the in-car radio to call for help.

And I truly believe that day that they thought they killed me or I was gonna

die because they could've easily come back after I knocked, was knocked out

and just pumped another round into me and I for sure would've been dead.

I think one of the things that I really helped me in that situation

medically was there was birdshot.

So what happened is most of my bulletproof vests took it, but I had,

uh, some eye injuries from the pellets.

I had broken ribs, I had broken blood vessels, and I had some stomach issues

that were reel result of the trauma.

So I actually was in the hospital for three days afterwards,

uh, before being released.

And, you know, it was quite an ordeal.

You know, you have to take into consideration, Riverside had never

had a police officer involved shooting or a police officer shot

ever in the history of the village.

So, um, it was quite a traumatic event.

And back in the early, the mid eighties departments didn't know

how to handle those shootings.

Yeah.

What time of day was that, Tom?

Yeah,

Tom.

What time of day was that?

3:00 AM in the morning.

Yeah.

So obviously 3:00 AM in the morning.

It sounds to me like you were describing they were breaking into

a home or a home invasion there.

Did any of the neighbors call 9 1 1 after hearing the gunfire?

Not a single call and you know, what they were doing?

The person that lived in that house, this was found out through investigation,

was, uh, worked for the sheriff's office in Cook County and his job

was to review people that would be up for early release or parole.

And he had denied the early release to a Chicago gang member.

He then sent other gang members to go to that house to assassinate him.

So the intent, the intent was to do a home invasion, kill this this, uh,

officer that worked for the sheriff's police, but he worked for the, the jail

side of it to release prisoners and as a retaliation for not letting one of

their gang members out on early release.

And then I interrupted it and they shot me instead of the homeowner.

So Tom, really, uh, you saved this guy's life.

I mean, it's, it's obvious that if you hadn't have stumbled upon

that vehicle parked, uh, in a place it shouldn't have been that night

that, that, uh, correctional, uh, professional would've been, uh,

killed and maybe his whole family.

And, and, uh, so kudos to you obviously you suffered, but uh, you saved a life.

You know, one, one of the things I've long been, um, an advocate

of, and, uh, it really upsets me when I see police officers not

wearing their bullet resistant vest.

It doesn't happen as often now as it used to, but, uh, you're talking 1987.

All right, bullet resistant vests were not really worn regularly, and it

was not mandatory back in those days.

But for some reason, uh, maybe it was your wife.

Uh, I'm, I'm sure my wife would've had me wearing a vest, but you purchased

your own vest and it saved your life.

Talk to me about that.

I.

Yeah, so they didn't purchase vests for us when I started.

You had to do it on your own.

And actually my wife purchased it as a gift and she had purchased back then the,

the brand she purchased was Point Blank.

I dunno if you recall those.

And.

We had to wear those under our uniforms.

The department policy was no.

Today you see a lot of the vests outside, right?

You had to wear it under your shirt and under your uniform,

and it wasn't mandatory.

So there was not a policy that said the officers must wear it back then.

So it kind of a, a strange story like, so when after I was shot, Point Blank,

reached out to me and said, Hey, you know, we'd like to feature you enough.

Uh, news ad in these police chiefs magazines and police magazines

about being saved by our vest.

And in return we will supply the whole department with free vests.

And they reached out to me about two months after the shooting

and I did not wanna do it.

So I told the guy from Point Blank, like, I don't want notoriety.

And I wasn't ready.

I wasn't mentally there.

I'm like, I, I don't want to do this.

I don't wanna do any ad campaign heroizing, the, you know that I got shot.

I don't want that.

Well, when my chief found that out.

He came over to my house and said, Tom, they're offering to

buy purchase bulletproof vests for free for every officer.

If you agree to this media campaign, I'd really like you to do it.

And I said, no.

And I think the chief was really upset at me for the rest of

my career until he retired.

I don't think he ever forgave me.

And it was just that I wasn't in a place to do this media blitz two months after

I was shot, when my wife didn't even want me to go back to work and, you

know, and, but my chief at the time, all he saw was, Hey, they're going to give

us free vest for every office there.

So, so I'd really like you to do this for the department and.

I didn't, so it caused a big problem then between the administration

and me during that period of time.

Tom, I wanna, I wanna get, I wanna.

Uh, expound on that a little bit, but then I want to get back to your

story, but Point Blank, everybody down here wore Point Blank.

I wore a Point Blank vest under my shirt.

And then later in my career I wore a 30 pound tactical vest from Point Blank.

And I had been to their facility a number of times because they're

located just outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida down here.

And I remember that program and they used to do that with everybody where

it was, uh, it was the Point Blank Saves program, and they interviewed all

these cops that got saved by the vest.

And it was, it was quite a good thing.

And, but let's go back to what you were saying about when you did get shot.

And this gang banger rolls out of his car, out of the back,

shoots you with this shotgun.

The rest of the scumbags come running out of the, out of the

house that are trying to assassinate the homeowner and, and, and, uh.

Who are these guys?

What are their backgrounds?

Why was this happening?

There's they one, I guess one of 'em or all of them were gang bangers.

Yeah.

The story behind that was years later, years ATF made a gun running

arrest and one of the individuals they arrested wanted to give

information on a police involved.

He thought it was a murder.

That's what he told the ATF agent.

For lessening the charges that he was gonna be going away for and gun running.

And he's like, you shot him?

And they said, no, I was with the person that shot him.

And I will exchange that information if you, you know, give me consideration.

So ATF said, sure.

ATF reached out to Chicago, they said, Hey, you have any unsolved

shootings involving your police officers where they were shot?

They're like, Nope.

We do not.

So ATF thought he was lying and the guy didn't even know that he

had shot in suburban riverside.

He thought it was Chicago.

Officer and ATF finally put it together.

They called one day, talked to our chief and said, Hey, we, we have really good

lead on the guy that shot your officer.

Um, unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to do anything with it.

And the reason was, was because in Illinois in that time, the statute

of limitations for attempted murder of a police officer was three years.

If you can believe that.

Yes.

Yes.

Unbelievable.

It was three years.

And, um, think about this, in that same time period, the

charge of forgery was forever.

So you could write a bad check in Illinois and have the bad check bounce, and the

police could chase you down for 30 years.

You could attempt to kill a police officer, and there was a three

year statute of limitations, and it's since changed.

I worked with the state legislature when I, when that happened, I was so angry.

Um, IW we had a state legislator that lived in Riverside and I worked

with her to get the law changed, but they could do nothing for my case.

So that to, to me that's almost nuts, nuts, nuts.

But it's Illinois Bill, come on.

Well, it's Illinois, you know.

Well, what can you say?

But, hey, so three years attempted.

Murder on a police officer.

So if it was, if it was attempted murder on a police officer, I guess

the statute of limitations was the same for attempted murder on anyone?

Correct?

Yeah.

They didn't have a, back then, they didn't even have a designation, so

it was just attempted murder was a three year statute of limitations.

Then they didn't even have a subcategory for police.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay, so, and you were just about to tell us you jumped on this bandwagon

and, and ran with it, I guess.

Yeah.

I had a state legislator that lived in town.

Her, her name was Judy Baar Topinka, and I went to her and told her and

had gotten some local news media coverage and she had heard about it.

She said, yeah, I'll go, we'll go with you to Springfield, Illinois, the capital,

and we'll try to get this law changed.

Along with another law.

So she came up with the idea like, let's regulate these dark windows.

Well, let's, let's get some, some regulations in Illinois on how

dark your windows can be tinted.

So after some several months of, she proposed legislation and it passed

overwhelmingly to eliminate the statute of limitations and put the percentage

of how dark your windows could be in Illinois, uh, for that tinting.

Hmm.

Gotcha.

Tom.

I wanna back.

But that never helped your situation though.

Yeah,

but it wasn't able to help others.

But no, it did.

It did not, it was not able to help my situation.

So the guy that shoots you, Tom, uh, gets off scot free.

There was never any justice in your case, although there was some

good legislation, another law that went into place, uh, thankfully,

uh, as a result of your sacrifice.

Uh, I wanna go back to the shooting though.

Um.

You know, thankfully most of us have never been shot.

Okay.

Um, I just want you to try to recollect what went on in your body, in your mind.

I mean, you're almost killed.

You, you, you were lifted off your feet, you said by the shotgun blast,

and obviously did a lot of damage even though the vest, uh, saved your life.

Um, what goes through your head?

I mean, you were able to call.

Uh, dispatch, I guess, and call in your, the shooting.

I mean, tell me what's going on at that point in, in your, your life and the

trauma that you suffered as a result.

Yeah, for me, and I think for most people, that if

they, if you ever talk to somebody who was stabbed or shot, I, I.

My training kicked in it, and it didn't take, it took like one

second, like, so I'm a big advocate for that repetitive training.

When I got shot, when I woke up from the, my head bouncing off the, uh,

end of the squad car at the bumper.

I just immediately went for my handgun immediately.

They didn't take it.

It was, I still had it, and back then it was a revolver.

I had a Smith and Wesson revolver, and they were already fleeing,

and I would've, I, I literally would've randomly been shooting.

Down the block in a suburban community.

So I wasn't gonna do that.

And then I went for my radio right and it wasn't working and

I immediately crawled like an the army crawl back to my squad cars.

My door was still open on the squad 'cause I got out to check

that VIN number crawled in and.

Called in help on the police radio and it just was, you go back to your

survival training and the training you're taught even in the police academy.

It it, and people have asked me before, how did, how did you revert back there?

I didn't have to revert back there.

I just, you just, I just defaulted to my training immediately.

I can't describe it any other way except for it just clicked.

You just went back to your training.

Yeah.

And you know, it's interesting, and I don't know, we, we should

compare notes here now that you've been retired for a while.

I'm retired for a while.

I find myself now, uh, in, you know, out and about and, and I, I see

something that happens or, you know, I'm always carrying a gun and, and

I just feel like I'm kind of soft.

Now I feel like, you know, I'm, you're not.

Psychologically in that mindset and in that game, and you, you kind of lose it.

So there's a lot to be said about that repetitive behavior

of muscle memory from training.

And I feel like now, uh, I'm not even near what I, what I should be or how I was.

I guess it's better to say.

Yeah, I would agree.

You lose if you're not like I, you know, I used to, we, our qualification in

the department was every month, right?

You, you get really good.

Even, even the officers who aren't really proficient, the more

you do it, the better you get.

Without a doubt.

And the physical fitness and, you know, any ground fighting

training we would have.

Um, and even in retire, I have a few things I do.

My wife still drives me crazy.

She drives me.

I mean, crazy by saying, when I go to restaurants and stuff, I always have,

I always pick a table where I can see the door and don't have my back

to it, and it drives my wife crazy.

But she goes, you've been retired now.

You're still doing that.

I'm like, I do.

I, that's just what I've done my whole life.

And it could happen anywhere, anytime.

Doesn't matter whether you're retired or not.

I mean, we told a story about this guy.

He was a, uh, police chief in Kentucky.

He was 80 years old, and he walked down the driveway to his

mailbox to get the mail one day.

And you know, your situation was with a shotgun.

So some scumbag jumped out of a car with a shotgun and blew his head off.

He was 80 years old.

He'd been retired for years.

This guy had been just recently released from prison.

And this guy, this 80-year-old man police chief had put him in

prison 30 years ago, something like that, and boom, all of a sudden.

So, you know, you never know and it's always better to, to be safe than sorry.

But I wanna ask you about this piece of shit that shot you.

Who is this guy?

I guess you know his name.

Do you know anything about him?

Did he go to prison?

Is he hopefully dead?

What's his deal?

He is dead now.

He did not go to prison for my, he was a Latin King gang member in Chicago.

Uh, and he was a high ranking.

Latin King gang member.

And yes, uh, he died in a street battle.

Years later.

He did have some prison stints between my shooting and when the individual wanted to

give him up for to ATF, he had some minor arrest that he had done, like a six months

or a year, and he never did an extended period of time in state prison ever, and

that he was killed himself in a shootout.

So the Latin gang, Latin Kings was a was at the

time and I don't know about now.

It was a pretty vicious street gang.

Very violent street gang.

And they, at one time they controlled Chicago.

They still are a violent street game in Chi in Chicago.

There just are many other street games in Chicago with that same status.

But in the early and mid eighties, the Latin Kings ruled the city of Chicago.

Yeah, Chicago put 'em on their radar for sure.

He had already been on their radar, but after this had taken place, 'cause.

We had received a phone call from the Chicago Police and their tactical

commander, which is the officers they send out in plain clothes.

They knew the individual well, um, and they were gonna make sure

that they kept a close watch.

We even received phone calls from the FBI and the United States Secret

Service at that time, offering any help that they could to.

Maybe make a case against this individual for other crimes that, that, like maybe

putting them up on wires and stuff.

You couldn't get 'em for my crime that that was off the books.

It was never gonna happen.

Right.

But they, you know, the feds did call 'em, say, Hey, you know,

we're, we're, you know, maybe we'll get this guy on our radar too.

We'll just keep 'em on the radar so that we're following their activity.

I don't, I did not see the federal government make an arrest.

Chicago had many contacts with them after this took place and then.

Uh, you know, some people will say, unfortunately, he was killed in Chicago.

I wouldn't be one of those people to say that.

And, and that was in a gang and he, there were no innocent people in that.

Those were gang bangers shooting each other.

Yeah, a little street justice there.

Hopefully.

Tom, here's my favorite part of the story though.

So you're shot in August of 1987.

Nearly killed.

Spend three days in the hospital recovering, uh, then you go home.

As, as most wives would do, it's my understanding that your wife discouraged

you from going back on the job.

You'd been on the job, I believe, three years, uh, at the time of

the shooting, and yet you decided to go back and become a police

officer once again, even though it.

The profession nearly killed you and I, I have to ask you, because most normal

people, I don't think would've done that.

But you went on not only to go back on the job for a few more years,

you, you served 37 years in law enforcement and uh, 13 of them as

Chief of Police in that same department that you were serving back in 1987.

I'm just trying to understand, number one, how did, how did your wife,

uh, continue living with you after you decided to go back, uh, against

her wishes and why did you do it?

My friend?

Uh, 37 years, uh, in a profession that, uh, nearly cost your life,

and now you have three sons that are serving in that same profession.

Now, most people wouldn't have done that.

Yeah.

Um, so I'll, first of all, I'll say I've always thought law

enforcement and policing is the most honorable profession ever.

I've always thought that I wanted to be a policeman my whole life.

I was the type of kid that I went to, a Catholic grade school.

When I hear a siren, I'd run to the window and the nuns would

have to pull me back to my seat.

So I, I always wanted to be in law enforcement.

And then when this incident happened, the shooting afterwards when I came home.

What I found out had happened to my wife was terrible, and she, she was

really turned off by the way she was notified and, and what had happened.

So originally when I, when the department found out, you know,

the rest of the officer found out I was shot, they called the chief.

The chief said, okay, I'm gonna go over to Tom's house, pick up his wife.

He calls my wife, he's in the park.

We live in an apartment.

At that time, he says, I'm down in the parking lot.

This is what, this is how my wife gets notified.

I've been shot.

He says.

Your husband has been shot.

I don't know if he's alive.

Come down to the parking lot.

I'm gonna drive you to the hospital.

Wow.

She throws, she throws on some clothes, comes down to the, in

his chief's car that he drive to.

Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, where I was taken.

And he drops my wife off at the drive-through.

He doesn't go in.

Now, imagine this, my wife goes into the ER on her own.

The media's already there.

So my wife goes into the emergency room and she's surrounded by media

with no other police officers.

There are no media.

Our chief left, 'cause he said he was going back to the scene.

He told her instead of stay with her and.

When I got home after the shooting, my wife said, look, I, I can't take this.

I, I need you to find something else to do.

And over these six weeks that I wasn't, I was recuperating.

I'm like, what else do I know?

I don't.

This is what I've trained my whole life for.

It's what I wanted to do My whole life.

I, I don't really have skills right now at 22, 23, however old I was

like, I'm, I'm not a carpenter.

I'm not an electrician.

I don't have those skills.

The skills I have are in law enforcement.

And I had this talk with my wife.

I said, I really have to go back.

She goes, you have to go back or wanna go back.

And it started out as.

I have to go back.

By the end of the six weeks I wanted to go back and I said, you have to be on

board, you know, and she wasn't, at first, she was like, I can't, this is terrible.

I don't like the way the department treated you.

I'm scared to death.

I didn't know if you were alive or dead.

Um, and this is a small suburban police department.

She's like, oh my God, if it happens in Riverside, I, I mean, what's next?

So we had a lot of conversations and I got to a place where I wanted to go back.

Being the profession that I loved and still love and serve honorably.

And you know, on a side note, when I went back, they sent me, I had

to go through all the usual, see a shrink and all this stuff to

get legal to get back on the road.

And the chief said to me, um, yeah, you know, I don't think, you might

not rise too high in the department.

Like, I think this is gonna hold you back being shot.

What an asshole.

So, you know, you don't have to name names, but Yeah, asshole.

That's a good thing.

So, you know, honestly, because I'm as the, as you're telling this story, and

I'm thinking, you know, every experience that I had with someone that was shot.

They were forever anointed and taken care of on the police department.

Heroes, you know, when they came back to work, they got a suite assignment,

they got what they wanted, they were looked out for, they often got promoted.

This is contrary to everything that you're saying.

You know what I did, they did with me.

When I returned, they sent me, I had to go to the shrink and then they sent

me to, uh, somebody to put hypnosis so maybe I could give a better description.

And back in the eighties, they didn't know what they did.

It was, it didn't work.

It was a joke.

But they, they wouldn't allow me to, I had to ride a two man police

car for the first month 'cause they were afraid I would overreact.

And then they took me off midnight and they didn't put, so they would.

They wouldn't allow me to work midnights for over six months.

So I worked just days in four to 12 when I always worked midnights

because I was so young, right?

It was all by seniority.

So that was their answer to putting me back on the street, keeping me off the

midnight shift, and having me double up with an officer until that officer

said, yeah, I don't think Tom will overreact, because the chief told me,

he is like, yeah, after being shot, I think you might overreact on a situation.

I'm like, where did you come up with that?

Like what kind of training do like you have, you know?

So, 'cause these, the chiefs back then, they didn't have a lot of training in

this area, especially if you were in suburban department where they never

experienced an officer shooting ever.

They didn't know what to do.

So you feel like you got maybe a little bit of retribution

after you told that story about, uh, the Point Blank situation I suppose.

Yeah.

And you know, and I didn't really, I took some credit.

I didn't, and my thing was I didn't wanna bring notoriety to myself on that.

I, I was only on the job three years.

I'm a lonely patrolman.

I have no authority.

I have no rank, I have nothing.

And I didn't want this to define my career.

And you're right.

People, I mean, when I, people looked at you differently when you come back,

but if you're, if you're being held in a thing where they're giving you special

assignments and maybe looking at you as, Hey, you've been through the battle.

That didn't happen with me.

I was given no special assignments.

I wasn't, I wasn't, uh, treated any differently.

The officers were great, the administration was not.

Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure.

And it's, and it all well on that point, it always seems to be that way.

Bill, you may know this too.

I, I know Tom does.

But, um, we, at the National Law Enforcement Officers

Memorial Fund had worked very closely as partners with DuPont.

DuPont makes the Kevlar fiber, that gives the bullet resistant vests,

their, their resistance power.

And, uh, it's been extremely valuable.

Uh, those vests have saved.

Thousands and thousands of police lives since they started being

used back in, uh, the mid 1970s.

And they do have A-I-A-C-P, DuPont Kevlar Survivors Club.

Uh, people like Tom become members of that club when they are saved by a bullet

resistant vest, and they're usually.

Publicized, uh, Tom, I can understand, uh, the traumatic, uh, event you were

going through and, and just months after the shooting, you were asked to kind of

be out there and, and tell your story.

I, I can understand why you would be hesitant to do that, but I will say that

the, uh, survivors club, um, I think just the mere fact that they're telling

stories about officers who've been saved by their vests have encouraged.

Uh, thousands of officers to wear their vests because I think most

officers, sometimes it's hot.

Sometimes these vests can be uncomfortable, especially

in the summer months.

But the bottom line is you never know when that life-threatening moment may come.

But you do know that it could come on the very next call and that

vest may very well save your life.

So that's kind of a public service announcement I'll make, uh, for all

those law enforcement professionals.

And there.

Family members that are listening because, uh, as in your case, Tom, uh,

I know of a lot of wives and children of officers who have purchased bullet

resistant vest to make sure their loved one, uh, gets home safely.

So I hope that continues.

Well, and you know, and you know, Craig, you're talking

about DuPont and you're talking about, uh, you know, Point Blank.

Well, we'll talk about the IACP napal, the Top COP Awards, all those kind of things.

You know, oftentimes an officer, you know, like, like Tom, you know,

you have a traumatic incident, you're involved in some situation.

These people.

Have awards and, and banquets, and you're recognized, and oftentimes there's some

kind of monetary award or something else.

Nice.

That's done for you.

Tom, how did your chief treat you at the time?

I mean, you should have been the officer of the month, the officer of the year.

Uh, what happened?

It was, it, it, it was very, he treated me very poorly.

There's no question about that.

And I think it was lack of education and knowing what to

do, I mean, would never happen.

So what happened to me with my chief in the administration.

You'd be fired.

Now if you were a chief, you'd act like that.

Now they maybe, you know, we've made a lot of progress, right?

In officers post-traumatic stress disorder, a lot of treatment,

there was really none of that.

It was basically get right, go get your legalities done, like be the

shrink, will tell you that you can come back to work so Riverside isn't sued.

And that was about it.

And there was really no follow up.

I did receive the Kevlar DuPont award and the chief didn't really want to kind of

highlight that, so they wanted to present it at a village board meeting Okay.

In front of our elected officials.

And, uh, maybe the police officers could come and he just wanted it.

To be acknowledged and not have that.

So, you know, being young back then, I just, I didn't, you know, I didn't

wanna, uh, you know, you're naive.

I wanna get back to work.

You're confused.

You, you didn't get the support you thought you should get from the

administration, not the officers.

The officers were fantastic, but.

So it, I, while I did receive that award that, uh, Craig just mentioned earlier,

it, um, wasn't on the stain plateau that you would see that done today.

Wow.

That's crazy to me.

So what happened to that guy?

Hopefully you got fired.

And then the other part of my question is clearly as you rose through the ranks, you

know, in deference to what that guy said.

Well, you, you became the police chief there, so I'm sure this was

an invaluable lesson to you and you never treated your folks like that.

That's exactly right.

I, I made a focus, you know, when you're a patrolman, you're not gonna,

you don't say, I want to be the chief.

You just want to be able to do your job.

But I held every rank.

I went, I was patrolman, I went to street sergeant, I went to detective

sergeant, I went to Operations Lieutenant, and then finally deputy

Chief and I was even acting chief until they decided what they wanted to do.

So when the chief left at that time.

When the shot spot was open, they weren't sure that they wanted to go inside.

So the village was doing this national search for a police chief.

And you know, they came to me and said, Hey, put your name in.

And I said, I'm not putting my name in.

I've worked here 25.

You guys know me.

If you don't want me your chief, I'm okay with that.

Like, I'm not, I'm, that's okay.

Right.

And then, uh, the following day, the, uh, village president and

the city manager came and said.

Yeah, we do want you, like, how, how do what, what do we

do to get you to be a chief?

And when I accepted it, I, you could, my wife was here, she'd tell you the

same thing I said all the years that I was going up in the department, I

am not gonna have policies like this.

I'm gonna be a completely different um, chief.

I'm gonna make sure that the officers are well taken care of.

And in fact, I bet you that there were some politicians that would

tell you that I was quote unquote.

Officers chief, like maybe I wasn't as administrative as I should have been, that

I had a tendency to really support the rank and file police officers and I did.

But you know, I lasted as 13 years as the chief.

So I think a lot of the politicians that I served under, they supported

that because I was not what you would consider a chief that sat in his office

all day and put memos out and emails.

I mean, I was out there with my officers and.

I wanted to be different, and if that, they didn't want that kind of chief,

I didn't want to be their chief.

Tom's story of survival is remarkable, but what happened next

would test him in ways he never imagined.

Next episode, we'll hear about his fight against a justice system that

failed him and how his advocacy is protecting officers across Illinois.

Join us for part two of Tom Weitzel's story.