West Central Florida

Concerns of Police Survivors

Each year, between 140 and 160 officers die in the line of duty and their families and co-workers are left to cope. Concerns of Police Survivors (also known as C.O.P.S.)  provides resources to help them rebuild their shattered lives. There is no membership fee to join C.O.P.S., for the price paid is already too high.

C.O.P.S. was organized in 1984 with 110 individual members. Today, C.O.P.S. membership is over 65,000 survivors. Survivors include spouses, children, parents, siblings, significant others, and co-workers of officers who have died in the line of duty according to Federal government criteria. C.O.P.S. is governed by a national board of law enforcement survivors. All programs and services are administered by the National Office in Camdenton, Missouri. C.O.P.S. has over 50 chapters nationwide that work with survivors at the grass-roots level.

On October 22, 2004, the National Board of Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc. (C.O.P.S.) voted to issue a charter to the West Central Florida area. This area covers the following counties: Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Hardee and DeSoto Counties. Any survivor living within our counties are able to get the local support that they need from our chapter, regardless of whether their officer that was killed lived in our area. For instance, we have officers that were killed in other parts of the state, or even other states, who have family members that live within our counties, and/or as survivors move to our area from another chapter area, we will support them as well. Members that are eligible to use the services of C.O.P.S. are family members (spouse, child- natural, adopted, and step, parent and siblings), significant others, fiancés, other family members and affected co-workers of Law Enforcement Officers who died in the line of duty as determined by the FBI, PSOP, NLEOMF, or FOP criteria..