Blue Sheepdog

As a police officer, you regularly arrest people. Very few want to go to jail. Some will fight, some will run their mouth about “seeing you off-duty.”

Anyone you have arrested can want revenge. Rarely will anyone act on those desires, but there is no way to know who will show up on your doorstep one day with revenge on their mind.

There have been numerous cases of police officers and their families being attacked at home because of on-duty incidents.

For example, in January 2007, two men bent on revenge against Jackson County (FL) Sheriff John P. McDaniel, followed his wife home and murdered her and Deputy Harold “Mike” Altman that responded to her call for assistance.

In the article below, Pasco County (FL) sheriff’s deputies uncovered a plot to kill one of their own. The man arrested in this case was allegedly looking to collect a bounty placed on the undercover officer. Among the information he was allegedly collecting was information about the deputy’s children and family.

If you have never talked with your family about the possibility of being attacked while off-duty, or worked out a plan on how to respond if it happens, now is a good time to do it. It can mean the difference between life and death.

Stay alert, stay armed, and stay safe!

Bounty on detective’s life?

The Sheriff’s Office accuses a man of plotting to kill an undercover officer.

HOLIDAY - Where does the detective live? What does he drive? What’s his number?

Does he have kids?

These probing questions helped land David Eugene Ford Jr. in jail on Thursday, accused of threatening the life of an undercover Pasco sheriff’s detective.

While investigating Ford in another case, the Sheriff’s Office said it learned that the alleged plot against one of its own was hatched last month.

An unidentified female witness said Ford asked her for detailed information about the vice detective. Deputies believe Ford wanted to use this witness as bait in some sort of trap.

The detective, Ford told the witness, had locked up a lot of his “peoples.”

The witness said Ford claimed a cash bounty was put on the detective by a local offshoot of Folk Nation, a gang alliance born in an Illinois prison in 1978.

Ford, according to the witness, said he was going to collect it.

“It sounded like David was trying to come up with a plan that if he held this female hostage, this detective would come over and help her,” said sheriff’s spokesman Doug Tobin, “and he was going to kill the detective to collect this alleged bounty.”

“The suspect denies that. But we’re still investigating the entire case. It’s obviously a serious threat.”

For security purposes, the Sheriff’s Office is not identifying the detective in this case or the amount of the bounty.

Is the bounty real? Lt. Frank Laton, commander of the sheriff’s vice, narcotics and intelligence unit, said it doesn’t matter.

“We’re still investigating the legitimacy of the bounty,” he said. “But any time someone makes threats to a law enforcement officer, we take it very seriously.”

Laton said the intelligence indicated that Folk Nation is active in Pasco County, but he declined to comment further.

Ford, 34, is a frequent visitor to the Pasco County jail, according to records. Since 2005 he has been arrested on charges such as domestic battery, reckless driving, forgery and fleeing to elude.

It was a new allegation of kidnapping, the Sheriff’s Office said, that uncovered the threat.

Ford was accused of forcing a former beau to drive him around Port Richey at gunpoint on Tuesday, according to a sheriff’s report. He was arrested Wednesday after a brief chase on foot, the report said.

Ford, of 5839 Mariposa Drive, was arrested on charges of threatening a public servant, armed kidnapping and resisting arrest without violence.

He was in the county jail late Friday, held in lieu of $110,500 bail.