ATLANTA — A Georgia state trooper tells Channel 2 Action News that he is worried about paying his bills after getting injured on the job.
That’s because Trooper Scott Parker had to retire and is now getting just a fraction of his paycheck.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne spoke exclusively with Parker, who is calling for change after his Nov. 2021 crash in Catoosa County..
Parker said he had spotted an SUV doing 88 mph in a 70-mph-zone and it was a short pursuit.
“I realized that he wasn’t getting off and he was not stopping, so he initiated a pursuit. We reached speeds between 120 to 140 miles an hour,” Parker said. “My vehicle somehow started rotating. At that time, I could not gain control over the vehicle and went off the right side of the shoulder.”
Parker broke his neck in three places and had a gash on his head that required 31 stitches. He also injured his shoulder and one of his eyes.
“I struck a sign and then struck some trees and the vehicle ended up rotating twice and came to a final rest on its top with me still in it,” Parker said.
Parker said it’s been a long road back.
He said something else impacted his life hard when he realized he was no longer physically able to work as a trooper because of his injuries.
Parker told Winne that he and his wife Megan learned some pension rules are less favorable for certain state law enforcement officers who started after Jan. 1, 2009, and that his full, in-the-line-of-duty medical retirement pension is just 26.2% of his trooper salary -- only $1,511 dollars a month.
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“The number that they sent me back for my retirement was like, ‘Wow.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was seriously a slap in the face. Like, I didn’t know how to take that. And I was like, ‘How am I supposed to manage? How am I supposed to financially support my family now?” Parker said.
“We’re very fortunate I have a very good job and we have a very supportive family. But you sit and you take $1,500 dollars a month and you look at your bills, that doesn’t even pay my house payment. And so you sit and you’re going, ‘OK, can we cut this?’” Parker’s wife, Megan, said.
“I’m still in day-to-day pain. I can’t do what I used to do. Even lifting my daughter up, and she’s seven years old, and it hurts to do that,” Parker said.
The Parkers said state law needs to be changed to get a better formula not just for Scott, but for everyone else it affects.
“This is not a reflection on the Department of Public Safety at all. They have been phenomenal throughout this entire process. We just want to make sure that no other trooper and their family ever has to go through this,” Megan parker said.
“The Department of Public Safety has been there every day for me, and I can’t thank them enough,” Parker said.
Parker, who said his official retirement is April 1, told Winne that he tried to go back to work which lasted five months.
“I miss it. I mean, it’s something that was in my blood,” Parker said.
But he said the pain was too much and his limitations created an officer safety issue.
“We go out here and we do we put our life on the line, and I’d do it again if I was cleared to go back to work,” Parker said.
Employee Retirement System of Georgia Executive Director Jim Potvin told Winne that he can’t talk about any specific employee’s disability retirement for privacy reasons, but once a medical panel has determined an applicant qualifies for a disability pension, the amount that employee receives is strictly a matter of state law and the mathematical formula it sets forth.
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