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Polen’s acts of kindness for law enforcement officer and their loved ones have stretched across the length and breadth of the U.S., at a time when brotherhood and kinship are particularly valuable – and needed.
No fewer than 20 people, most of them police, have told him that LEO Only directly kept them from committing suicide.
Now Polen and his group are the ones in trouble: At a time when they need to spread the word about a massive upcoming fundraiser, the organization's Facebook group is “in review” – and they have no idea why.
“I got the standard message saying that something we did violated their community standards,” the Pennsylvania State Police sergeant said. “But we don’t know what it is.”
The timing couldn’t have been worse, with LEO Only’s big dinner on tap next month to raise $150,000 for scholarships and holiday shopping sprees for the families of fallen officers.
“We’re going to be behind the eight-ball real quick,” Polen told Daily Voice. “We’ve got 10,000 raffle tickets to sell.”
Struggling for answers, Polen can only guess that the trouble may lay with yet another act of compassion.
After learning that he was to receive an award for helping police in a Colorado town find and rescue a boy who’d posted that he intended to kill himself, Polen posted a 15-minute video on the LEO Only Facebook page about how police suicides affect their families.
SEE: Police Suicide and Why? (YouTube)
The video “was mainly informative,” he said. “It wasn’t up that long when guys started reaching out, saying that it benefited them.
“Then 8:30 this morning I get the flag that something happened.
“If they tell you what you did, you can address it,” Polen said. “But they don’t tell you.”
The LEO Only Facebook group is a closed, special online fraternity of sorts -- which, as its name says, is only for law enforcement officers.
Polen created the group six years ago after a close friend and fellow Pennsylvania state trooper killed himself.
SEE: leo-only.org
Since then, he, his moderating crew and tens of thousands of members have done all they can to make those along the thin blue line who might consider taking themselves out think again.
“There are so many groups on Facebook that are made up of civilians who like law enforcement, which is great,” he told CLIFFVIEW PILOT in 2013. “But the guys themselves don’t have many safe havens where we can talk amongst themselves.
“Many have seen or been through things that others who aren’t in our line of work haven’t,” he added. “One of our guys told a story of seeing a dead baby. He reached out and the members immediately gave him contact information and support. Another officer’s partner was killed.
“We’re all here for each other.”
And for those who’ve lost loved ones in or out of the line of duty.
"The surviving parents of these children have to pay the bills even if money isn't there," Polen explained. "So those immediate needs must be taken care of first. Unfortunately, Christmas also gets wiped off the table and the kids are left behind.
"We're just paying it forward is all."
Such a significant group doesn’t take long to draw members. There were 36,600 as of Monday.
Then the hammer dropped.
Facebook temporarily disabled the LEO Only group -- “because it has content that goes against our Community Standards” -- then reopened it while it’s under review.
This gives Polen and his co-administrators an opportunity to make changes and then request reinstatement, the message he received says.
“If we find that it meets our Community Standards, the group will be restored,” it says. “If not, it will be permanently deleted.”
The problem is figuring out exactly what the violation might be.
Polen and his five co-administrators (white, black, male, female) have been combing the LEO Only posts, looking for and removing anything that might be a potential tripwire – in essence, censoring themselves.
Meanwhile, more than 5,000 original members immediately hopped back into a follow-up group that Polen created just in case there's a shutdown.
“We’re doing what we can,” he said. “All we can do now is wait for the review.”
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ALSO SEE: "Do you know what it's like to go the mall with four teenage girls?" Bergen County Sheriff's Officer Wilbur Lloyd asked Monday night after a five-hour Christmas shopping spree in Paramus for the five daughters of late colleague Lt. Brian Beutel.
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ALSO SEE: Jake Abraham got the Christmas of his young life today when a group of police officers from Teaneck and River Edge took him on a Toys R Us shopping spree, thanks to a fledgling organization that cares for the families of cops killed or injured in the line of duty.
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