A family member of the Delaware officer who was recently beaten to death decried the media’s reporting on police officers during his eulogy.
“If Cpl. Heacook had to take the [bad] actor’s life, what would have happened to his life? It would’ve been hell. The media would’ve been here in full force. … ‘Unarmed this, unarmed that’ every night without fail,” Larry Schwartz, fallen Delmar Police Department Cpl. Keith Heacook’s cousin said.
“Keith would have been placed on administrative leave while the investigation was conducted,” Schwartz continued while speaking at Heacook’s funeral on Monday. “That investigation would have taken weeks, if not months, to complete. During that time, Keith’s life would have been put under a microscope, as it’s easy for folks who have no idea about police work. His family would be shunned. Even when Keith was cleared, that does not generate enough news.”
Heacook died last Wednesday, days after he was beaten while responding to a fight in which an elderly couple was also attacked. He was a 22-year veteran of the force and leaves behind his wife and 12-year-old son.
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“On April 24, Keith was getting ready for his midnight shift,” Schwartz continued. “Your thoughts are not, ‘What’s going to happen to me today?’ It’s, ‘Does the kid have a game? Do I gotta go to the bank? Am I getting enough sleep for my side job?'”
“In that home, he met an attacker, an unarmed man. Keith fought hard for his life. He had so much to live for. Was he thinking of his wife, Susan? His son Matthew? His mother, Anita?”
“Giving everything he had to make sure he could get back to his family, but that didn’t happen because in the real world, criminals don’t always comply, and unarmed criminals can kill you,” he added.
Schwartz also addressed politicians who demand that police be defunded, telling congregants to “stop listening to the loudest voices.”
“Listen to the voices that law enforcement protect. … FYI, you know who hates bad officers the most? The good cops out there doing the job every day of the week.”
“Let his name be a beginning, not an end,” Schwartz concluded. “Good change can come from this. Let it happen.”
The funeral comes amid another wave of anti-police sentiment across the country sparked by the recent deaths of black Americans during interactions with police.
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Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan was also in attendance at the funeral and said his legacy will “forever live on through the countless lives that he touched throughout his incredible life.”
“There was nothing he wouldn’t do for the residents of his community,” Hogan said. “Keith spent more than two decades serving and protecting others, and he brought honor to his badge each and every day. He acted immediately without regard for his own safety. The heinous crime that followed, which resulted in unspeakable tragedy, is a reminder of the risks that our men and women in blue face every single day. And it’s on the worst of days that we ask the very best of them.”
