Claim: Petition seeks to persuade the television show Extreme Makeover, Home Edition to create a new home for Danita Marsh, a wounded police officer.
Example:[Collected via e-mail, 2006]
On October 27, 2006 Officer Danita Marsh, a Black female Nashville (TN) police officer, was ambushed while sitting in her patrol vehicle trying to assist a domestic violence victim. That fateful day changed a lot of
lives. It changed Danita's Marsh's life forever. She is now paralyzed from the waist down.
Officer Marsh, like countless other officers suit up everyday to go out to our city streets to keep the peace, insure decorum, and try to keep our families safe. Let's show Officer Marsh that we appreciate her and her
commitment to service.
We are one big extended family. We've asked Extreme Makeover-Home Edition to assist Officer Marsh in achieving her goal that she vowed to walk again.
Show how much you believe in that goal by putting your name down to let ABC Producers know that we want this story of courage and determination to make the show for a newly built house for Danita Marsh and her son, to meet their special needs.
Please cut & paste the list then add your name, city & zip. We need at least 500 names or more before Christmas. Send it to everyone you know.
The 500th person will forward the list to djones2925@bellsouth.net. The list will be mailed to ABC-TV. The list will be mailed to ABC-TV.
[list of names removed]
Origins: Sadly, the facts of the supplication reproduced above are real: On 27 October
2006, 30-year-old Officer Danita Marsh, a 3-year veteran of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and the mother of a 9-year-old boy, was wounded in the manner described while on a domestic violence call. As she and the domestic violence victim sat in Marsh's police cruiser, the victim's boyfriend, a convicted murderer named Willie Lee Lindsey, returned to the scene and opened fire on the two women. The critically-wounded officer got off two shots but missed, and the assault continued as Lindsey opened the door of the cruiser and pistol-whipped Marsh in the head, then turned his attention to his estranged girlfriend, shooting her in the hip before pulling her from the squad car and beating her until her brother came out of the house, causing him to flee. Lindsey was subsequently apprehended after a high-speed chase and is now behind bars.
Officer March sustained extensive gunshot wounds to her arms and spinal cord in the assault. She is paralyzed from the waist down and is now a patient at Vanderbilt's Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital.
While the goal of getting a nationally syndicated television show to build a house suited to Officer Marsh's disabilities is kind-hearted, it may also be misguided. For certain selected lucky families, the ABC televison network's Extreme Makeover, Home Edition tackles household renovation projects of a nature that would normally take about four months to complete, and accomplishes them in seven days. However, those projects are of a "renovate an entire house" nature, not of a "build one from the ground up" one. While the Extreme Makeover, Home Editionapplication page does say the show is looking for "a deserving family" for whom its team can work its magic, key to the process is that family's already having a house — even in the episodes where the team built a new house, it did so after first deciding the existing structure was hopeless and razing it. Although none of the news stories about Officer Marsh flat-out says she doesn't own a home, each one that details fundraising efforts being undertaken for her benefit talks about building her a handicap-accessible home or buying her one. We surmise if she already had a house, at least some of those efforts would mention the possibility of remodeling her existing
domicile.
However, even if Officer Marsh were already a homeowner, Extreme Makeover, Home Edition receives thousands of applications each week, so adding one's name to a cyber petition you hope someone will present to the show's producers is far from a guarantee of helping the wounded officer obtain quarters better suited to her disabilities. Also, the show's selection process demands the provision of photos and a video of the family and their existing home, requirements that an e-petition couldn't hope to satisfy.
The show also just aired an episode about such a project undertaken for another wounded police officer. On 11 December 2006, Extreme Makeover, Home Edition featured the renovation of the home of Kristina Ripatti, a Los Angeles police officer who was shot by a fleeing robbery suspect (subsequently killed by her partner) on 3 June 2006. Ripatti, a 10-year veteran of the LAPD, wife of an LAPD officer, and mother of a two-year-old girl, was paralyzed from the waist down. The fallen officer's home was made fully wheelchair accessible by the show in October 2006, the process including lowering countertops and other fixtures to chair height, installing a lift system in the house, and adding a large handicap-accessible shower.
Rather than participate in a wide-eyed and possibly fruitless exercise in slacktivism, if the story of the permanently-disabled police officer who has a 9-year-old son to care for moves you, why not make a cash donation?
There have been a number of charitable efforts on behalf of Officer Marsh. Some have already concluded (such as the 16 December 2006 fundraiser at the Crystal Fountain Church on Russell Street in Nashville and the 5 December 2006 special benefit auction that raised $28,000), but others are ongoing and therefore offer opportunity to the general public to make financial contributions to the injured woman and her son. While Officer Marsh's medical bills are paid by the department, she will have to cope with many expenses beyond that. For the first 130 days of her disability, she will be on "injured on duty" status with her department and receive full pay. After that, she will collect 60% of her salary (which amounts to about $30,000 a year for her and her young son to live on), so they do need help.
The 100 Club of Nashville, a service organization that assists the families of fallen police officers, has set up a fund for Officer Marsh that the public may donate to. Those wishing to make contributions (which are tax deductible and 100% of which will go into Danita Marsh's fund) should make their checks (noting "Marsh" in the memo field) payable to the 100 Club of Nashville, and mail them to: The Hundred Club of Nashville, P.O. Box 190428, Nashville, Tennessee, 37219-0428.
Barbara "check it out" Mikkelson
Additional information:
Internet Petitions: Why They're a Waste of Your Time
Last updated: 31 December 2006
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/danita.asp
2006, 30-year-old Officer Danita Marsh, a 
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