David Fowler was formally the Undersheriff in Osceola County, Michigan. David has a background in forensics and narcotics. He is also a 41 year veteran of law enforcement and was the state wide coordinator for victims services and member the Michigan Sheriffs Association. David helped author the victims services training manual that Michigan uses state wide and other states use nationwide. He has many years doing Search/Rescue/Recovery locally, as well as being on larger projects like the Space Shuttle Recovery Team back in 2003, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Gustav, and Hurricane Sandy. David has an avid love for boating, with many years experience, which only helped make the rescues during the hurricane Katrina disaster not only successful, but safe. David also flies a powered parachute which is used for searches and was instrumental in finding shuttle parts when not doing 50+ person, type III line searches.
Christopher Lyons has been doing Search/Rescue/Recovery for the last 30 plus years and is a Large Scale Disaster Specialist. He worked the Long Island Pine Barrens Fires and the New York State Senate Emergency Task Force during the World Trade Center Disaster. Christopher also helped out at the American Airlines plane crash in Bell Harbor/Far Rockaway just 2 months after the 9/11 attacks (it was supposed to be their first day off). From there he was on the Space Shuttle Recovery Team where he met Undersheriff Fowler. Christopher was also down in New Orleans during the Katrina disaster with Undersheriff Fowler for two and a half weeks. He then returned down south and helped in TX and LA for Hurricane Rita. It was during this time that Cops Helping Cops was formed. From there, Chris did SAR during Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy, and the Long Island Blizzards of 2012, and 2013. Then to Oklahoma for the largest tornados on record in late 2013. During the Covid-19 Pandemic Christopher fed almost 400,000 Long Islanders while getting over 300,000 First Responders and hospitals masks and sanitizers. After that $600,000 in medical supplies were donated overseas to impoverished countries. Chris has also done 2 tours in Ukraine on the front line as a front line medic. While there, he also took care of orphanages, taught combat medical to the Dnipro Police Department, CPR and combat first-aid to civilians. He also helped to create a food source that did not require heating or cooling and would sustain having an aviation background, has done aerial searches, 50 person plus type III searches and has certifications for woodland SAR, NYDEC SAR, Air force SAR. He also has certifications in GPS, Mapping, and Navigation.
So, how did Cops Helping Cops come to be? In March 2006, Christopher happen to call the New Orleans P.D. just to see how they were doing and touch base with the people he had worked with during the hurricanes that wiped out the south in late 2005. After speaking to a few officers, Christopher was speaking with an officer who finally broke down and told him just how bad things really were. “Its worse than when you were here” he was told. But how could that be? New Orleans was under 20 feet of water when we were down there. After hearing things that just seemed to be incomprehensible, Chris called Undersheriff Dave Fowler. The two decided to travel down to New Orleans and see things first hand.
What we saw was indescribable. People living in filth and mold. Children playing in destroyed neighborhoods with dangerous debris everywhere. Then we went down and met with the police officers themselves. These fine people were working with almost no resources. How bad was it? They didn’t even have toilet paper, paper towels or soap. So we purchased some supplies for them out of our own pockets. As we continued to speak with the officers, we found that they were displaced from their families. Most, still today, don’t have their families home and have not seen them for as long as 5 months. At this point we asked them to show us their homes. These homes ranged from destroyed to gutted. None were finished. Some of these pictures may be viewed in our photo gallery. Money is a huge issue. Some had no flood insurance and the ones that did, the amount of monies received didn’t help enough. We realized these people needed help, and a lot of it.
So on our last night in New Orleans, Dave and I sat down to eat dinner and we came up with an idea. After realizing that the most expensive costs of rebuilding a house is labor, an idea was hatched. What if we could have Police Officers from all over the nation help these people rebuild? By providing the disaster stricken officers with free labor, these officers would now have a chance, a real chance, of getting their lives back.
When we returned, Cops Helping Cops (CHC) was formed and incorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. We have been using all our contacts and resources, to not only reach out to law enforcement from all over the country, which has had GREAT feedback, but to set up lodging, and food for the officers as well as trying to get sponsors.
Right now, our biggest obstacle is transportation. First, We really need some type of a deal worked out with a major airlines (or someone who is willing to loan us their personal passenger jet capable of holding 20-30 people). We are trying to either get them to donate free seats (with the idea that their flights are safer with as many as 50 police officers onboard, or to give us the seats at cost. We would then also need money donated to cover that cost). Next we need a passenger bus to transport the volunteer officers once they are here. It would need to be one large coach or two smaller buses, each capable of carrying 25 people. Anyone that can help us, or if you know of a good contact, please let us know.
We would like to thank you for taking the time to read this. Now….go sign-up and come help us!!!
