Extreme Makeover has been in Los Angeles the last few days to tear apart, and completely rebuild, the home of LAPD Officer Ripatti. If you don’t know about Ripatti, you should. She was the LAPD officer who chased after a robbery suspect and was shot by the suspect as she caught him:
Ripatti was on patrol with partner Joe Meyer that Saturday night, June 3, near La Salle and Leighton avenues when a jaywalker sprinted in front of their car. He was a short, older man in a dark, hooded sweatshirt. “Basehead,” Ripatti thought, a chronic narcotics user. Not likely to be as dangerous as younger gang members in that area. The man appeared furtive and kept glancing back. Ripatti got out of the car. The man broke into a run. Ripatti, fit from 45-minute daily runs, caught him on the pitch-dark porch of a nearby four-plex. She reached to grab him.
Meyer was a few steps behind. He saw a muzzle flash. Ripatti fell. Meyer drew his weapon. The suspect, 52-year-old James Fenton McNeal, was about eight feet from him. Meyer fired. McNeal would be pronounced dead from four gunshot wounds.
The officers had not broadcast a “code six” before stopping, a way of letting other officers know their location. Now Meyer tried his radio. But the frequency was blocked by another broadcast — a robbery at a nearby gas station, which Meyer would later hear had been committed by the man he shot. He tried again. A witness recalled seeing Meyer standing over Ripatti, screaming into the radio, “Officer down!” over and over.
Ripatti was on her side, talking. Meyer ripped off her uniform shirt, then her bulletproof vest. It seemed to take a long time. He couldn’t find the wound. He searched her abdomen. Nothing.
Ripatti, who was suffused with survival adrenaline, kept pushing herself upright with her arms, insisting she needed to go. Meyer held her, then had to use his full weight to hold her down. She struggled and cursed him.
At last, Meyer saw a tiny stain of red just under the arm of Ripatti’s white T-shirt. He pressed a finger into a hole under her armpit, and felt the pressure of blood. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of McNeal’s gun behind him on the porch, and McNeal motionless beyond.
He kept his finger in the hole, until four officers with emergency medical training arrived, and told him to let go. He backed off, paced, tried to find other things to do, and spent the rest of the night second-guessing himself.
I had blogged about her here, here, and here.
She was ultimately paralyzed from the waist down from her injury but has promised that she will walk again.
Ripatti said she knows there are hard times ahead, but she is not without hope that she might regain some use of her legs. She said she knows she has to be there for her husband and daughter.
“I’m glad I’m alive,” she said.
And now Extreme Makeover and over 250 volunteers are at this moment demolishing her old house and replacing it with a new one.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition took Southern California by storm Oct. 11 when its crew joined forces with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The nationally televised reality-show features families facing arduous circumstances.
Led by Special Weapons And Tactics (S.W.A.T) officers, a crew of some 250 volunteers prepared Oct. 13 to rebuild the home of paralyzed Officer Kristina Ripatti. Extreme Makeover, which airs weekly on ABC, will refurbish Officer Ripatti’s home–at no cost–to accommodate her physical disability.
The home’s transformation will be revealed Oct. 18 to Officer Ripatti and husband Tim Pearce, also an LAPD Officer. The “Ripatti Family” episode is tentatively scheduled to air Sunday, Nov. 26. Extreme Makeover sent the couple and their 19-month-old daughter, Jordan, on a weeklong vacation to Mexico while their home undergoes construction.
The new home will be wheelchair accessible and consist of an additional bedroom for Officer Ripatti’s mother-in-law who will provide home health care. Some 2,000 volunteers–plumbers, tile setters, and drywall and siding installers, among others–are expected to assist with the seven-day endeavor. Cornerstone Construction Group of Redondo Beach will spearhead the project.
Mark your calenders for Nov 26th to see this show. Watch something that will bring a smile to your face rather then the crapola we get day in and day out from our MSM. Watch someone truly deserving, get something she truly deserves.
UPDATE
Cop The Truth found this great slideshow done of the rehab that Officer Ripatti is undergoing, and her struggles.
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I read about this over at Cop the Truth. I’m glad both of you are letting others know about this. I’ll do my best to spread the word.