The Founder & Chairman of \u201cThe Wounded Blue\u201d non-profit arrived in Erie on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He was in town to honor U.S. Marine Corps Veteran and former Erie Police Officer, Richard \u201cR.J.\u201d Williams.<\/p>\n
The mission of \u201cThe Wounded Blue\u201d is to improve the lives of injured and disabled Police Officers.<\/p>\n
The non-profit provides support, education and legislative advocacy.<\/p>\n
Williams received a plaque and the Blue Medal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the non-profit\u2019s version of the Purple Heart.<\/p>\n
Richard Williams was an Erie Police Officer for 19 years, when everything changed in 1987.<\/p>\n
He was working security for a major event with his Canine, when he was struck on the head with a large, heavy object.<\/p>\n
Richard Williams never worked again.<\/p>\n
Richard is an inpatient at the Erie V.A. Medical Center where the ceremony took place and his message remains clear.<\/p>\n
He told Erie News Now, \u201cI encourage young men and women to sign-up for Police duty and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randy Sutton served as a Police officer for 34 years.<\/p>\n
His career ended with he suffered a stroke on the job working in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
His department abandoned him and that sparked his desire to help fellow officers in the same position.<\/p>\n
Nine years later, \u201cThe Wounded Blue\u201d is a national success.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an honor to be in Erie today to honor and recognize the service and sacrifice of Mr. Richard Williams,\u201d Sutton told Erie News Now.<\/p>\n
Richard\u2019s brother also served in the U.S. Marine Corps. His father is a WWII Veteran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Founder & Chairman of \u201cThe Wounded Blue\u201d non-profit arrived in Erie on Tuesday. He was in town…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,139],"class_list":["post-243423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}