Today is Todd’s birthday. He would have been 40 years old. When I first met him, he told he was born in 1969, which would make him my age - just a few months older. So for years we all thought he was my age. A few of us had looked at his driver’s license and questioned the year saying 1966 on there. He poo-poo’d it away saying that DMV made a typo and he just never went back there to fix it. We beleived him. Why would he lie? hahaha
I’m laughing just thinking of this. Todd was a Diva. Let me rephrase that. Todd was the DIVA. He hated growing older and he didn’t like the things his body was starting to do being in his late 30’s. I could relate, since we were the same age, right? There was a group of us girls that he called “his divas”. Some of us fit the bill quite well too. Yet, out of all of us girls….He was the biggest diva of all.
After he passed away, I looked at the obit and it said his birthday was May 19, 1966. I was like, HOLY SHIT the newspaper got it wrong! So I called his mom and dad to let them know and they informed me that, in fact, their son was born in 1966. I laughed with his mom for a few minutes and told her the stories he had told us. She said to me, “Sodapop, you know he did not want to get old. He hated the aging thing.” And then our friend TM told me “He once told me that he wants to die before his parents because he does not want to watch them suffer.” WOW.
In January of 2005, Todd thought he was having a heart attack and went to the hospital. He was there for a week or two. They found that he had problems with his kidneys, high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. They got everything taken care of and put him on meds, etc. He was doing and feeling very well by the time his birthday came around that year.
On June 18, 2005, a group of use went to BJ’s Brewery for dinner and then to a movie. We saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Here’s a picture of me and Todd that night. As far as we know, it’s the most current picture of him before he died.
The picture is not very clear, it was a scanned photo. I also wish that those dirty plates would have been moved. However, since it’s one of the only pictures of me and Todd, I’m going to stop complaining about it haha
On June 26, Todd and I talked on the phone for an hour or so and he was doing so well. He was cooking chicken at the time I talked to him and he was feeling good. We agreed to meet at a meeting that night. He never showed up.
On June 27, 2005 I was leaving a GA meeting at about 8pm. My phone rang and the caller ID said it was Todd. I answered it and it was his dad. He told me that he and Todd’s mom found Todd in the garage of their home they shared with him and he was dead. Todd had a massive heart attack and died almost instantly, from what the coroner said. His parents still don’t know what he was doing in the garage, since he parked on the street.
Happy Birthday my friend. I miss you and will never forget you. Rest in peace.
Until next time…. 
Here is the information on a fund that was set up today for Sgt. Henry Prendes’ family. The Injured Police Officers Fund (IPOF) along with the Police Managers and Supervisors Association (PMSA) and Latino Peace Officers Association (NLPOA), and the Police Protective Association (PPA) have opened an account in the name of slain LVMPD Sergeant Henry Prendes. Funds collected will be provided to the family of Sergeant Prendes.
A donation in his memory can be made at any Wells Fargo Bank Branch. Donations should be made to the “Sergeant Henry Prendes Memorial Fund”, also known as “The Officer Down Fund”.
As I woke up at 4:30 this morning, I realized I had only been asleep for a few hours. I tossed and turned all night long - not getting to sleep until close to 11pm. I prayed a lot last night and when I woke up. I prayed for Henry’s family and I prayed for my friend who was standing less than 5 feet from Henry when he was shot…I prayed for the officers who responded to the scene to help and I prayed for the officer who was shot in the leg.
As the day progressed, it was very somber at work, which I knew it would be. Everyone is sad and depressed, some are angry and devastated. Some are a little bit of all of those emotions.
Who, exactly, are we to direct our anger at? The man who chose to kill Henry and shoot the other officer and shoot at all the other officers? The people out there like him, who don’t give a rat’s ass about the lives of others? The people out there like him who are “hard core” rappers and talk outta their asses about killing cops and F*CK the police? Hmmmm I’m a little angry at all of them. I’m angry that the little punk chose to do this to another human being…I don’t care that he hates the police and I don’t care that he was an “aspiring” rapper - the way the media is portraying him. He was a punk and I’m glad he’s dead. He was a punk who took the life of a father, son, brother, friend and husband.
Henry was a good person. Henry was a good father, a good husband and a good cop.
Until next time…
This afternoon as I was sitting at my desk, training a coworker on our new budget system, I got an email from my boss telling me there was an officer shot in the Southwest area of town…so I made a few phone calls for him and got into contact with the AA(Admin Asst) over there…she and I talk for a few seconds…she was frantic - her husband is a patrol officer in that area and at that moment she did not know who it was that had gotten shot….
She called me back a few minutes later - in tears. One of our officers was shot and killed by a domestic violence suspect…The officers were responding to this house for the THIRD time and as they approached the house, the suspect opened fired with a AK 47 high powered rifle….one was shot in the leg and the other was shot and killed. Working at the police department, I have always known that this was a possibility…someone I knew could be injured or killed. I was hoping it would just not happen. Unrealistic hope, yes….but it was still a hope nonetheless. 
I went to high school with the officer who was killed. We were not friends, but we did know each other. When we found out the other worked on the department, we laughed about how small a town it really is….we graduated 1987 from Las Vegas High School. Another officer that I currently work with went to school with us as well and he graduated the year behind us (1988).
I was not angry when I was at work - at least, not angry at God. I then realized….who do I have to be angry at? The suspect is dead…back up/responding officers shot and killed him…so really…technically…I have no one to be angry at so I’m struggling with where to direct this anger….so I thought I would vent…
Please pray for the officer’s wife and kids, that they get through this time of grief and sorrow.
Until next time…
I read msnbc.com every morning and I’m saddened by the news…at least now, she and her loving husband are together again….my condolences, prayers and thoughts are with the King family today…
ATLANTA - Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband’s assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died. She was 78.
Markel Hutchins, a close family friend of the Kings, told The Associated Press he spoke early this morning with Bernice King, who confirmed her mother’s passing.
Former Mayor Andrew Young said on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Web site that Bernice King found her mother at about 1 a.m.
Young, who was a former civil rights activist and was close to the King family, told NBC’s “Today†show: “I understand that she was asleep last night and her daughter went in to wake her up and she was not able to and so she quietly slipped away. Her spirit will remain with us just as her husband’s has.â€
Efforts by The Associated Press to reach the family were unsuccessful. They did not immediately return phone calls, but flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning.
King suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in August 2005.
She was a supportive lieutenant to her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement. She had married him in 1953.
Keeping his dream alive
After her husband’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive while also raising their four children.
She worked to keep his ideology of equality for all people at the forefront of the nation’s agenda. She goaded and pulled for more than a decade to have her husband’s birthday observed as a national holiday, then watched with pride in 1983 as President Reagan signed the bill into law. The first federal holiday was celebrated in 1986.
King became a symbol, in her own right, of her husband’s struggle for peace and brotherhood, presiding with a quiet, steady, stoic presence over seminars and conferences on global issues.
“I’m more determined than ever that my husband’s dream will become a reality,†King said soon after his slaying, a demonstration of the strong will that lay beneath the placid calm and dignity of her character.
She was devoted to her children and considered them her first responsibility. But she also wrote a book, “My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.,†and, in 1969, founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
King saw to it that the center became deeply involved with the issues she said breed violence — hunger, unemployment, voting rights and racism.
“The center enables us to go out and struggle against the evils in our society,†she often said.
After her stroke, King missed the annual King holiday celebration in Atlanta earlier this month, but she did appear with her children at an awards dinner a couple of days earlier, smiling from her wheelchair but not speaking. The crowd gave her a standing ovation.
At the same time, the King Center’s board of directors was considering selling the site to the National Park Service to let the family focus less on grounds maintenance and more on King’s message. But two of the four children were strongly against such a move.
The early years
Coretta Scott was studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music and planning on a singing career when a friend introduced her to Martin Luther King, a young Baptist minister working toward a Ph.D. at Boston University.
“She said she wanted me to meet a very promising young minister from Atlanta,†King once said, adding with a laugh, “I wasn’t interested in meeting a young minister at that time.â€
She recalled that on their first date, he told her, “You know, you have everything I ever wanted in a woman. We ought to get married someday.†Eighteen months later — June 18, 1953 — they did, in the garden of her parents’ home in Marion, Ala.
The couple then moved to Montgomery, Ala., where King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and organized the famed Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. With that campaign, King began enacting his philosophy of direct social action.
The couple’s first child, Yolanda Denise, was born that same year. She was followed by Martin III, born in 1957; Dexter Scott, born in 1961; and Bernice Albertine, born in 1963.
Finest hours
Over the years, King was with her husband in his finest hours. She was at his side as he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Sporting flat-heeled shoes, King marched beside her husband from Selma, Ala., into Montgomery in 1965 for the triumphal climax to his drive for a voting rights law.
Trained in music, she sang in many concerts and narrated civil rights history to raise money for the cause.
Only days after his death, she flew to Memphis with three of her children to lead the march of thousands in honor of her slain husband and to plead for his cause. Her unfaltering composure and controlled grief during those days stirred the hearts of millions.
“I think you rise to the occasion in a crisis,†she once said. “I think the Lord gives you strength when you need it. God was using us — and now he’s using me, too.â€
She said her life without her husband, though drastically changed, was immensely fulfilling.
“It’s a fulfilling life in so many ways, in terms of the children, the nonviolent civil rights cause and in the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial center.â€