It is our understanding that the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the United States Department of Justice plans to include COVID-19 in its list of diseases that would qualify a Law Enforcement Officer’s family to receive the Public Safety Officers’ Benefit if the virus causes death or permanent disablement of a First Responder. Based upon the information released by the BJA, it is critical that the virus is proven to cause the Officer’s disablement or death, and therefore we cannot stress enough the importance of documenting exposure to the Coronavirus as early as possible.
Even if you exhibit no signs of the disease now, our disability attorneys recommend that MOS document any on-duty instances in which you were in the same office, building, or Command as others who tested positive for the virus. Members should also document on-duty instances when they were within six feet of others and/or used equipment shared by other Members of the Service. To protect our Members’ rights for the PSOB in the future, we urge our Members to prepare a Line of Duty Injury Report, including exposure number, and make detailed memo book entries and, if possible, Command Log entries.
Please see the following BJA press release regarding the need for documentation to prove COVID-19 was the cause in any instances of death or dismemberment from this dangerous virus:
