Fundraiser In Place To Help Family Of Deputy

Mahaska County Deputy moments after a reported shooting on the streets of Oskaloosa. (file photo)

Mahaska County, Iowa – The past week has been a tough week for the family, friends, and brothers and sisters in blue of Deputy Brian Rainey.

Rainey was killed on Tuesday morning, August 11th, 2020, due to an accidental gun discharge, leaving behind his wife and two children.

Levi Ritz, an Ottumwa Police Officer that lives in Oskaloosa

As of Sunday morning, August 16th, 2020, the fundraiser had collected $4,575.00 of the $5000.00 goal that was initially set.

Ritz wrote on the GoFundMe page, “During this difficult time I’d like to band together as a community and show support for a grieving family. I have created this page in an attempt to take away some financial stress from the family with funeral costs, bills, etc. Please let’s show the Rainey family how much Brian meant to us all!”

“I’ve known Rainey for a long time,” says Ritz. Brian Rainey was almost universally known as just Rainey. “I wasn’t as close to him as you, some of these others.”

“Obviously, in law enforcement, we love to take care of each other period. We know that something needed done.”

The thought was to help take off some of the stress the family will be facing.

“Short term, everybody’s there, everybody’s with you for like the first week or two, and then after that, people start to fall off. We wanted Chrissy and the family to know, one, we’re here no matter whatever you need, we got you.”

“We don’t want the family to have to be completely stressed out about financial issues when they should be focused on other important things,” added Ritz.

That initial total of $5,000.00 was just something put in place for an early goal, and Ritz calls the outpouring so far, “tremendous.”

Across the nation, support for members of law enforcement has been at an all-time low.

Many times, the public only see the negative interactions with law enforcement, and rarely see the positive interactions.

It’s something that officers do, get called to the scene of people in dire need, and often leads to seeing the bad side of things. But having the turnout and support during Brian’s funeral has been amazing.

If you would like to donate and help the Rainey family through this time, a GoFundMe account has been set up to support the family. – https://www.gofundme.com/f/brian-rainey?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&pc_code=fb_co_dashboard_a&rcid=b79072bbc0264da4bd6ac84818c0d285&fbclid=IwAR1Iu83A1HlHCaZrzeRqHOM1UE0iK1bpbJ7yA4HoiAetKzeJAjt6DDeOCwg