Operation Blue Shield Comes to San Angelo

“What do you want?” “Dead cops!” “When do you want them?” “Right now!”

That is the chanting Toni Pickens said she heard outside of her hotel room in New York City back in Dec. of 2014. When she heard those words, Pickens said she picked up the phone and called Chief David Brown of the Dallas Police Department.

“I said, ‘Chief, you don’t deserve this. No matter what’s going on in our country, and I know there are issues on both sides, you don’t deserve this,” the founder of Operation Blue Shield said.

Pickens made it her mission to not let what she heard in New York spread further, so she founded the Operation in Feb. of 2015 and raised $200,000 for the Dallas area.

According to the organization's website, Operation Blue Shield creates, promotes and funds programs designed to bring about progressive change, trust and unity within communities. The goals of the organization include providing tools, programs and opportunities to bring about these concepts. In the 10 short months Operation Blue Shield has been around, it has received support, not only from the mayor in Dallas, but also from state legislatures and governors.

“What we need right now is something to make us feel good and unite,” Pickens said in a presentation to citizens and officers Monday morning at the McNease Convention Center. The presentation is part of an effort to welcome the program to San Angelo.

“This particular program is about community and it’s about law enforcement and first responders," the founder noted. "It is about us coming together as a country, and it’s about us making the right decisions.” 

Better schools and towns “starts with people in the community working with their law enforcement,” said Pickens. “Safe neighborhoods lead to home ownership, businesses thriving, and economic development.”

San Angelo Police Chief Tim Vasquez attended the presentation. He added, “A program like this will really take us into those areas and those homes where we don’t have those relationships, and we need to build those relationships. It’s about neighborhood revitalization. It’s about bringing new business to our community. It’s about building a community that is safe, that is thriving, and everybody has a better way of life.”

One mission of Operation Blue Shield is to educate young citizens on exactly what to do when they get pulled over by an officer, and also to help children understand that officers are here to protect, not harm them.  “For the children who have been brought up in households not respecting police officers, we have to try and catch them and turn their impressions around,” Pickens said.

Vasquez added, “Programs like this are very beneficial for us. When I first come across Operation Blue Shield, it was on the Internet and it was during a time when Ferguson and Baltimore were occurring. I saw the initiative that Toni Pickens pushed forward and I thought, ‘You know, it would be great if we had something like that.’”

Operation Blue Shield offers several programs to help get the community involved, including “Operation Blue Shield Church Swaps,” “Power of One Speaker Series,” and for the children, “Little Murdock’s Army.”

Chief Vasquez said he is very enthusiastic about the program overall. “I think having a program like this that we, as law enforcement, are supportive of, we understand the goal at the very end. If we take that initiative as well to do the church swaps and spend more time in the schools, I think that would also build our relationship with the citizens we serve,” he said.

For citizens of a community to help Operation Blue Shield, they not only have to start showing public support for law enforcement, but they can also make a contribution through the website. Donations are 100% tax deductible, and donors receive a “swag package.” These packages include ribbons and hat clips and stickers donned with the Operation Blue Shield symbol—a blue and yellow shield.

“The blue is the uniform color. The yellow was brought in because we tied yellow ribbons around the tree during the Vietnam War,” Pickens added. “My goal was to get these two colors known to everyone across the country.”

Vasquez noted, “The men and women in law enforcement in our community don’t always get thank you’s or appreciation." He said that is what Operation Blue Shield is all about.

To learn how to get involved and start showing support for officers, visit www.operationblueshield.com.