There was nationwide coverage given to the tragic event in New Hampshire where a police chief was killed and four other officers wounded in a botched attempt to serve a search warrant. The raid was aimed at ridding the town of what the police called “a menace,” referring to the culprit Cullen Mutrie. Following the operation, the police found Mutrie and his girlfriend both dead from apparent suicides or murder/suicide. While the news was rightly focused on the tragedy of the police officers, the investigation also revealed a lot more about drug dealer, Cullen Mutrie. Despite his growing criminal record (aggravated assault, drug possession, etc.) Mutrie was serving as a volunteer firefighter and had hopes to become a paid firefighter on a New Hampshire department. It appears that Mutrie had created a fake resume on both Facebook and LinkedIn to portray himself in a better light in order to have the court remove some of his criminal charges from his record. This shows that background checks are crucial, especially those of firefighters and EMT applicants. Just “surfing the web” does not equate to a bona fide investigation and there is no excuse to avoid performing this function.
Read more
