Officer Down website created in wake of Metro officer deaths

Jessica Langgin struggled to keep up with the flood of community support in the weeks following the brutal, execution-style shootings of two Las Vegas police officers last summer.

An administrator of the Las Vegas Metro Police Officers Wives club on Facebook, Langgin coordinated donations and volunteers to make sure that the families of officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo had the full support of hundreds of law enforcement families connected to the group.

But she quickly realized there needed to be a better way for people to help. The wives of Metro officers were organizing “meal trains” — home-cooked food to be delivered to the families every day — and pointing concerned friends to one of the numerous fundraisers held throughout the valley. But the outpouring of generosity from valley residents was more than the wives group could handle.

“Everybody was trying to find a way to help our Metro family,” wives group founder Deborah Costello, 33, said.

Langgin decided it was time to ditch old-fashioned fundraising means like car washes and restaurant events and create something that would allow people to contribute as much as they wanted at their convenience. She helped launch the Officer Down website in July.

In the year after the tragedy, Officer Down, found online at officerdown.us, has become a national nonprofit that exclusively features law enforcement crowdfunding campaigns. Langgin took over full control of the website in May after leading campaigns that have raised about $140,000 for officers and police departments across the country.

BACKING THE BADGE

Langgin, 44, said she has a long history with charity and providing support to police causes.

She was diagnosed with an advanced case of Hodgkins lymphoma 14 years ago. She was six months pregnant at the time. She and her husband, retired Metro Sgt. Mel Langgin, found support in the department’s Family Unity Network, which no longer exists.

“What they did for our family, by bringing people together in the department whom we’ve never met, and helping us with fundraisers, and helping us with meal trains, left an imprint on us,” she said. “It was really touching. It kind of refreshed and renewed my faith in humanity.”

“Cancer was a bitch,” she added. “But that kind of led me to a lot of thinking.”

Langgin battled cancer for two years, and when she recovered she started fundraising for cancer charities. As an active member of the Metro wives group, which now has more than 600 members, she prepared meals and collected gifts and toys for law enforcement families in need.

One year, when officers seemed to have low morale following a new policy that halted cost-of-living raises, the wives embarked on Operation Cookie Drop and delivered baked goods to officers on every shift during the week before Christmas.

“That was the beginning of an adventure for me. I just took it to a whole new level with this,” she said.

FILLING THE GAPS

One of the most important things Officer Down does is to provide support for officers who encounter tragedy off duty, Langgin said.

The Injured Police Officer Fund has an extensive fundraising machine, but if a cop is injured off duty they won’t receive assistance from that source.

Mel Langgin, a 24-year veteran of the force, said command stations used to pass around a collection plate in these situations, but Metro has grown so large that officers may not even know the cops at other stations.

And Langgin takes on any law enforcement cause. She said she does a little investigation to verify the events actually happened, but she doesn’t shy away from controversial campaigns.

She’s hosted campaigns as benign as bulletproof vests for police dogs and as scandalous as legal defense funds for cops who find themselves in hot water.

“There’s a great need for it nationally,” she said. “There’s nothing to help those people.”

Costello said she’s happy to be one of the most vocal supporters of Langgin and Officer Down. She helps promote campaigns and points Langgin to tragedies involving police officers so she can help.

“A lot of people, even in Vegas, don’t know her,” she said. “But what she does is really good and helpful.”

Langgin has considered making another site for firefighters, or expanding it to all first responders, but for now her main concern is positioning the site to help as many people as possible.

“It’s just my niche,” she said. “It makes me feel like I’m making a change.”

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Find him on Twitter: @WesJuhl