Ailing former officer hits hard times in Punta Gorda

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PUNTA GORDA, Fla. A retired police officer who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and cancer is one rent payment away from losing his home.

“What do you tell your child who wants to come over on the weekend?” said Joe Locus, who moved to Punta Gorda to be near his two children after a 12-year law enforcement career in New York and North Carolina. “Daddy’s living in a van or staying in a men’s shelter?”

Locus, who was diagnosed with stage-three kidney cancer in 2016, recently reached out to Sen. Marco Rubio. The senator’s office is helping him plead his case to a judge in hopes of receiving Social Security disability benefits.

“It’s not a good feeling,” Locus said. “This is not a place I ever thought I’d be in.”

Locus won Officer of the Year from the Union County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina each year from 2004 to 2007. In 2008, he took a medical retirement after a foot injury. He needed time to heal but still hoped to return to the force.

That never happened.

In the years since, his brother died and his marriage fell apart. All the while, the PTSD presented challenges.

His awards stand as a stark reminder of what he’s lost.

“These plaques have been moved and taken down and put back up and taken down,” he said. “It’s almost as if there’s days I’m proud of who I was, and then there’s days I’m not.”

 

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