I take my job as an ER nurse pretty seriously. There's a meme out there, shared frequently by a vocally loud but very small minority of nurses (who also all seem to be anti-vaxxers and All Lives Matter types- weird, huh?) that goes something like "BE nice to me, I'm a nurse; I pick catheter and needle sizes!" And every time I see someone share that with a cute little "Tee hee hee!" added, I get incensed. D'you know why?

Because it flies in the face of everything nurses stand for. I don't threaten people under any circumstances, ever. Yeah, I get treated like crap on a pretty frequent basis, but the minute I start inflicting physical harm on people and chuckle about it is the instant I need to get the hell out of the medical field. Public service is never easy, but that doesn't excuse anything. Ever.

So let’s discuss the Phoenix Police Department borrowing a neo-Nazi challenge coin design to brag that they'd exploded a protestor's testicle- and my friend Brandy, who is determined to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

Awhile back, it came out in the news that the Phoenix Police were using a challenge coin as a sort-of interdepartmental morale boosting token. This, of course, is not news in and of itself, but oh boy, the KIND of challenge coin they were using just, and WHEN… yikes.

This challenge coin was issued to officers who worked the Trump Rally in Phoenix on August 22nd, 2017. A number of things happened at that event, but one of the biggest was that a Phoenix police office- who is on the Brady list after having choked someone he arrested while they were handcuffed- purposefully targeted a protestor with a "pepper ball" launcher and shot him directly in the groin. Initially, the report was that the protester needed surgery for repair to one of this testicles- whether true or not, though, the Phoenix Police department got a huge kick out of even the thought of that.

"Good night left nut!" Ho ho ho, take that, lib! Amirite fellas? And the overt connection to Donald Trump, that’s just, *chef’s kiss*.

And so they developed the "challenge coin" you see depicted above to "commemorate" that. Super cute. Well, except for the fact, you know... it was based off a neo-Nazi designed "coin" (which I refuse to link here) featuring a Dodge Charger- the very same car that a neo-Nazi plowed into a crowd of locals defending my community- and the quote "Good Night Left Side", celebrating the death of one and the grievous injuries sustained by dozens more.

Many of you know that I was on duty in the ER in Charlottesville for the events of the Unite the Right Nazi attack, but I've never gone into specifics on what happened that day. That's both because I take my job and HIPAA obligations very seriously, and because what happened to our community is something I refuse to leverage for anything. But in the wake of this news, I’m going to share one story about that day.

After their tiki torch rally on the night of August 11th, the Nazis let loose in celebration were in a fantastic mood. So it came the next morning that I had one of them as a patient in my emergency department. I'd been called in by our charge nurse- my wife!- because this patient was attempting to sexually assault one of our female nurses. They needed continuing medical attention and couldn't be immediately discharged, so they became my problem.

Now, I've had my patience tested in the ER. One time, I had a trust funder who hit the call bell every sixty seconds- they weren't confused, they literally only wanted to “remind us” how important they were. Another time, I had a family member try to break into the room of a pediatric patient we were doing CPR on because his wife had had to wait for almost an hour to see the doctor, and an hour was "too long".

I'm not going to recount exactly what transpired that made this incident different. Part of it was that they had invaded our community, looking to hurt and intimidate our people in their own homes. But there was more... and my patience was finally worn thin.

"Listen here," I growled, "if I have to call the Albemarle County Police Department-"

"GOOD!" the Nazi exclaimed. "GOOD! Call them! A couple less pigs means my brothers can beat the shit out of those n****** and k**** downtown!"

It took everything I had to keep it together then; I pulled deep. Hell, I had to pull all the way back to the "turn the other cheek" stuff from the Methodist Sunday School I went to in the late 80’s. But I held it together. And that patient was able to leave our emergency department shortly before all hell broke loose. So when I tell you that any police officer that would make light of all of that, not ten days after the events actually transpired, needs to lose their job- understand I'm talking not just from common sense, but from personal experience.

Of course, nobody lost their jobs. There was a big "oh, woe is me" from the Phoenix police leadership, and promises of training, reorientation, blah blah blah et cetera. The creator of the coin remains a “mystery”, which, I dunno, I thought that the job of the police was to investigate #$^&ing crimes, but I digress, since all of that was apparently complete BS anyway because they just got caught gleefully including that entire incident in their most recent Police Academy training.

That’s why I’m damn glad my friend Brandy Reese is running for the Arizona State House, because as a retired peace officer, she knows what public service means- and she’ll make sure that nobody who thinks that what happened in my community is funny will remain a public servant for long.

I got to catch up with her recently when I was down in Phoenix enjoying Spring Training, where she had just finished the day having to escort people objecting to bills being considered by the Arizona Legislature, including a few submitted by Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers.

”Yeah,” I told her, “I know finding my way around the legislature building in Richmond is tough sometimes, too- byzantine, even! Nice of you to help them out here.”

Brandy smiled kindly at me. It wasn’t until later on in our conversation that I realized I had been incredibly naïve, and that Brandy hadn’t been escorting people for directions... she was protecting them. Apparently, anyone who speaks out against bills, particularly ones aimed at making the next coup attempt a reality, runs the very serious and very real risk of having their health and lives threatened.

Look, things aren’t great in Virginia, but we generally (but not always) don’t have to worry about people being threatened merely for showing up to argue in favor or against a bill. But that’s the kind of person that Brandy is. She unapologetically fights to make sure everyone can speak their mind safely... even if it means putting herself in-between them and danger.

Brandy is an amazing candidate, and we need to put her in the Arizona state legislature. She’s already been on the ground, burning shoe leather and building the amazing field team that’ll see her through to November.

She deserves our support! So please- chip in today to help Brandy put in the infrastructure she’ll need to cross the finish line on Election Day in November!