Vanessa Walsh, Widowed Cop's Wife, Denied Benefits From State

Common sense says you don't leave a widow with three kids out in the cold. But that's exactly what the state is doing to Vanessa Walsh.

Late last year, Walsh's husband Brian was guarding a perimeter while his fellow Federal Way police officers looked for a suspect with a gun. Brian wasn't hit with a bullet -- it was a heart attack that felled him -- but he still died in the line of duty.

Nevertheless, Washington's Department of Labor and Industry just denied Vanessa the survivor's benefits that would have provided her with a check every month. An important lifeline considering she's got a 12-year-old, four-year-old and one-month-old at home, the main breadwinner in her family is dead and we're currently in the middle of a recession.

But these are bureaucrats we're talking about. Which means that while they may do the right thing eventually, they're first gonna make the nice lady whose husband just died fill out a mountain of paperwork.

Worse, they forced her to hire a lawyer to argue on her behalf. Which .... http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/07/vanessa_walsh_widowed_cops_wif.php

My cousin had a heart attack while he was working as a public employee. Does that mean his wife gets his paychecks and bennies for the rest of her life?