Injured Cop Advocates To U.S. Senator: Officers Need Help Navigating Benefit Process

Friday, February 9, 2018 | 0

An injured former police officer from Berkeley County is among those encouraging U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, to introduce legislation to help injured first responders who lose their health insurance, Charleston’s The Post and Courier newspaper reported.

Will Rogers, 57, submitted testimony to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism meeting held last month about the long-term care needs of injured first responders. Graham chairs the subcommittee.

In his testimony, Rogers described his struggles since getting shot in the head on the job in 2015. The shooting left him with vision problems, debilitating headaches and seizures, he said.

Rogers said the Social Security Administration denied him disability benefits. He has been without health insurance since his Berkeley County-provided plan was canceled in August.

“It's just like nobody wants to help,” Rogers told the Post and Courier. “I pretty much stopped going to doctors. ... There's no insurance to pay for anything or even help pay for anything. I flat out made a decision that no matter how sick I get, no matter how bad the seizures are, I'm going to stay here in my bed and when they're over, they're over.”

The founder and president of a police-focused nonprofit called Code3 also spoke at last month’s subcommittee hearing. Dale Sutherland emphasized the need for consistency in the way officers are treated after injuires.

“It is possible for a police officer to sustain a career-ending injury on the job in one state and receive adequate disability and medical benefits, while an officer who sustains the exact same injury in another state receives meager benefits and struggles to make ends meet,” Sutherland said.

Sutherland encouraged Graham to introduce legislation that would, among other things:

• Track the quality of care and types of benefits injured officers receive around the country.
• Create federal guidelines for minimum standards of care for permanently disabled officers.
• Potentially make federal funds available to help permanently disabled officers who are injured early in their careers.

Graham’s most recent bills concern restricting abortion access and imposing stronger punishments on those who steal firearms from federal licensees. He has not introduced any measures concerning law enforcement within the past several months.