TexasCHLforum.com

The only issue I have with go fund me is that they keep a portion of the donations. I thought I'd heard it was an unusually significant portion, but aren't sure.

The atodallas one is giving 100% to the families. Our church, the Smith's church, also has one set up and is giving 100% to the Smirh family, but I don't have a link at this time. It is the Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Farmers Branch.

There are several ways to donate. Dallas has terrible health insurance and life insurance for their police officers. This I've learned from a couple officers that I've known for many years. Michael had about 3 years left before retirement, but was considering early retirement this year. I don't know if his family will get any of that retirement.

http://www.fox4news.com/news/171903939-story
There are several links to how to donate on this page that I've also listed below.

https://atodallas.org/

http://www.dallasfoundation.org/

http://www.dallasfoundation.org/

http://www.cftexas.org/dallasshootings

rentz wrote:

C-dub wrote:Our circle of friends is starting to organize what we can do to help our friend who lost her husband and their kids' father. They are active members in our Catholic church and school. His loss will affect many many people because his wife is also a teacher at our school. Hundreds of her students and daughters' friends are grieving right now and finding it difficult to give them some space for now. The immediate family needs their time first without being smothered by everyone else. We have one or two people that have been in direct contact that will help coordinate everything among our church and friends.

However, I, in no way, would discourage anyone from donating to help all the families affected by this horrific tragedy that lost loved ones last night.

I know that citizens in Carrollton have been donating to a go fund me for officer smiths family as he lived in our town.
gofundme.com/mikesmithdpd

The outpouring of support has been enormous! There was an event in Farmers Branch yesterday that was supported and operated by many from our school and church.

I also learned yesterday that Michael was not supposed to be there at all. This is heartbreaking. He was on vacation and called in because of the event. This was also not his area where he normally worked. He was reassigned to this area on that night because of the event and many of the officers closest to it were not allowed to wear bullet resistant vests or any other ballistic gear because they didn't want that image at this event. They thought it might inflame them or send the wrong message. I still don't know where he was hit, but it probably wouldn't have made much difference for a rifle round(s).

Michael's wife is, understandably, furious about those circumstances, but I don't think there was any way to have predicted what happened. After all the mayhem with the protests up in MN a couple days ago, none of those officers were murdered. Some were injured, but they'll all go home to their families and loved ones. The part about those protests that upset me was when that chief in MN said that they train for the worst and hope for the best and that the worst happened that day. None of his officers were murdered. It was far from the worst and after Dallas he should know better than to make that kind of a statement.

My daughter was asked by the family and will be an alter server at Michael's memorial service at our church this week.

Our circle of friends is starting to organize what we can do to help our friend who lost her husband and their kids' father. They are active members in our Catholic church and school. His loss will affect many many people because his wife is also a teacher at our school. Hundreds of her students and daughters' friends are grieving right now and finding it difficult to give them some space for now. The immediate family needs their time first without being smothered by everyone else. We have one or two people that have been in direct contact that will help coordinate everything among our church and friends.

However, I, in no way, would discourage anyone from donating to help all the families affected by this horrific tragedy that lost loved ones last night.