More than a week after an officer involved shooting<\/a> on Agnes Street left three Corpus Christi police officers injured, sending two of them to the hospital, the community is rallying to support one of the officers now facing a long recovery and mounting financial strain.<\/p>\nSenior Officer Jose Flores, who was shot in the arm, is back home and expected to make a full recovery, according to friends and family. But lost wages and medical expenses have created a heavy financial burden.<\/p>\n
Flores is known for his community involvement, including helping continue late Officer Vicente Ortiz\u2019s annual bike giveaway tradition in Sinton. Since the shooting, residents throughout the Coastal Bend have shared support and prayers for Flores and another hospitalized officer.<\/p>\n
Police Chief Mike Markle said Flores is recovering but will be away from work for an extended period.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe, he\u2019s doing well,\u201d Markle said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be out for some time, but you know, his injuries could take some rehab too or will take some rehab.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi Police Officers Association President Jody Fedler said that while officers understand the risks of the job, injuries like these remain unexpected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unplanned thing,\u201d Fedler said. \u201cPolice officers are not unlike, you know, anyone else who goes to work. They expect to come home. They expect to come home in one piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fedler said that when officers are seriously hurt, their families often lose access to significant sources of income.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re gonna get your regular paycheck, but that\u2019s all you\u2019re gonna get,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re not getting any of your overtime — and then typically a lot of officers work off-duty security jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recovery process can be lengthy, Fedler added.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot go back to work until you\u2019re released from the doctor,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially in these instances here where these are — very traumatic injuries. You\u2019re looking at a long road to recovery, so every little bit can help.\u201d<\/p>\n
For mental and emotional support, injured officers can turn to the department\u2019s peer support team, Fedler said.<\/p>\n
Markle said he remains grateful for the community\u2019s response following the shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a great, great community,\u201d he said. \u201cThey work with us — we work with them. If you were at the scene, you see how much of the community came out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officer Flores’s good friend created a GoFundMe<\/a>, which the community is using to support his family. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officer Jose Flores is recovering after being shot, while the community and police association rally to help his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-148472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}