DOAS says they can’t determine if Henderson caught COVID-19 in the Line of Duty
Honors aplenty have come for the late Sgt. Barry Henderson of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, who died from complications caused by COVID-19 in March 2021. His name is etched into the wall of the Georgia Public Safety Memorial for having lost his life in the service of his community and nation.
Governor Brian Kemp honored Henderson and his widow Chrisy, handing her a plaque in front of hundreds of people. He was included among the hundreds of officers who died in the line of duty as part of national honors as well, which visited Polk County last year on a tour around the country. The intersection of Highways 101 and 278 in Rockmart bears his name now to help the community remember his long service for Polk, and the great loss everyone felt after his death.
Money was raised for his family from throughout Polk and around the country. Benefits were paid out from the Georgia Sheriff’s Association and the federal government.
Yet the Indemnification Commission overseeing Department of Administrative Services appeals – which Gov. Kemp is chair, though not for this hearing – denied benefits to be paid out to Chrisy Henderson following the Sergeant’s death because the state hasn’t been able to determine exactly where Henderson contracted COVID-19.
His benefits were initially denied in 2021, but an appeal process was initially tabled before a hearing was held this morning, May 2, 2023 via a GoTo Meeting Webinar where local attorney Wright Gammon sought to present a case in favor of paying out those benefits. Normally those hearings are held in person, Gammon noted afterward.
Susan Setterstrom, the Assistant Director and Claims Counsel at the DOAS Risk Management Services division, presented on behalf of the DOAS and recommended continued denial of the claim, based on a “thorough investigation” conducted by DOAS Risk Management about how Sgt. Henderson might have contracted COVID-19.
Questions were raised over whether he could have gotten COVID-19 due to attending a required in-person court training session on December 21 and 22, 2020, during some of the worst days of the global pandemic. Setterstrom said during the investigation conducted by the state, they found that no one else attending the training, including four other Polk County Sheriff’s Office deputies, contracted the virus at the time.
They also found that two service calls he made via 911 dispatch – one to the Sheriffs Office on Dec. 15, 2020, and another to a residence in Aragon with two Aragon Police officers on Dec. 18, 2020, found no evidence of anyone involved in those incidents getting sick either.
Additionally, she presented an email during the hearing from one of the PCSO deputies attending the training who later became sick, Paige Atkins. Atkins, now an officer serving with the Rockmart Police, was quoted by Setterstrom that she had contracted COVID-19 after a family holiday visit and was out of work in early January 2021.
Following Setterstrom’s presentation, Gammon pointed out that being required to go to the training amid the global pandemic was by anyone’s standards at the time considered a dangerous move – hundreds of people in Polk County at the time had tested positive and many deaths had already occurred.
“Every officer working in the line of duty at that time was doing something dangerous. Doing something the general public thought was dangerous,” Gammon said to the board. “They (the public) wouldn’t do it, they let the guy in the badge do it.”
Gammon noted also how thoroughly careful Henderson and family had been about COVID-19, since his 83-year-old mother-in-law was living at home with Barry and Chrisy, and they were doing everything in their power to ensure she couldn’t contract the virus from one of them in the community. They even had groceries delivered in boxes on the front porch instead of going to the store.
“He went to the Polk County Jail, did his job and came home,” Gammon said.
How then, Gammon asked, could Henderson have gotten COVID anywhere else than working in the line of duty in one capacity or another?
He also argued that other organizations had already determined that Henderson had died in the line of duty – including Governor Kemp, who honored him in person but wasn’t involved in the May 2 hearing – and asked the Commissioners making the decision to continue to deny the benefits meant they would also backpedal on their previous honors proclaiming he died in the line of duty.
“What happens when this commission sits and says that Barry didn’t die in the line of duty. Are we going to go down to POST and tell them to chisel his name off the wall? The State of Georgia has already said that he died in the line of duty.”
Additionally, he pointed out that Atkins’ email wasn’t direct proof that she contracted COVID-19 from a family member during the holidays, since she wasn’t a medical expert and couldn’t possibly know if she got the virus earlier or during the time frame she described in her email.
Setterstrom did point out the requirements for death benefits under Georgia’s Indemnity Act versus those requirements for getting Henderson’s name on the Public Safety Memorial weren’t the same, and explained the lack of evidence of how Henderson contracted COVID at the time meant the board convened on Tuesday online to hear the appeal should uphold the denial.
“We have applied the facts based on the law,” Setterstrom said.
Though a motion was made to overturn the denial, no second came and thus the motion failed without the nod from other commissioners. A motion to uphold the denial was finally made, seconded and passed 5-2 on a roll call vote.
This final decision comes with no potential recourse for Henderson’s family, who can at least remember Henderson as a hardworking officer who served Polk County, even though it might have led to his untimely death.
Good enough for Governor, doesn’t cut it for State DOAS:
Sgt. Henderson was one of the best officers that I’ve had the pleasure of serving with and knowing. I don’t say it because of his passing, I said it way before he died. He was a great officer and person. Now, his family are denied very deserving benefits and based on what I know, this is so very wrong. Is Ms. Setterstrom saying that Governor Kemp was wrong to honor Sgt. Henderson? How could this happen? The bureaucracy of Ga. DOAS got it wrong. There should never have been a hearing to determine this outcome, the determination was made while Public Safety employees reported to work throughout the pandemic everyday. They didn’t get to handle their business in the safety of a ZOOM a meeting, they actually went into homes, business and other situations to keep us safe without questioning their own fate. This is the absolute essence of a Public Safety employee and their never wavering commitment to their respective duties.
The bottom line, he apparently was required to attend a training class by the courts during a time when others, had a choice. Sgt. Henderson didn’t have that luxury of not having human contact he had no choice. He attended the required class. Had he not been required to do so by a branch of the government, he might not had died. He did his duty and gave the ultimate sacrifice. While two of the board members, likely Public Safety employees themselves, saw fit to understand this. The other three board members and Ms. Setterstrom should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of understanding or humility of their decisions to disallow Sgt. Henderson’s family to access what every other officer’s family received for similar situations.
D.E. Canada