On his 10th day in the Chicago Police training academy, Donald E. Barnes Jr. went outside for his first physical training class — “a slow jogging exercise.”Just a reminder when Chicago asks for a federal bailout as they approach bankruptcy.
It was a hot summer morning exactly 15 years ago. The 30-year-old trainee made it just five blocks into the three-mile jog. He collapsed on Adams near Damen around 11 a.m. on July 16, 1997.
An ambulance rushed Barnes to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with heat stroke and placed in intensive care due to kidney and liver failure.
He never finished his police training, never worked a day as a Chicago Police officer — but, now 45, he has collected nearly $500,000 in tax-free disability payments.
Monday, July 16, 2012
10 days in the Chicago Police academy, 15 years on disability
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
