RETIRED COPS, FIREFIGHTERS COME THROUGH.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Ramona Miller Jacobs thanked Robert Henderson, Chris Annala and the other board members of the Retired Fire and Police Association for listening to her story.

She understood there was nothing in the bylaws of their association that allowed them to financially help her quadriplegic daughter, Michelle, but she had to try.

Things weren't going well for them, Ramona said, especially since the city's Board of Pensions had turned down Michelle's appeal to collect the pension of her late father - LAPD Detective Stanley Miller, who died of cancer in 1997.

The people over at the pension board were nice to them, too, but their hands were tied, said Ramona, who had been divorced from Stanley after 10 years of marriage and two children.

Rules were rules, the pension board had told her. Since Michelle had already turned 21, she was considered an adult when the van a girl was test-driving plowed into her small car as she drove home from her stock brokerage job in Beverly Hills in 1987.

Had the collision that left her paralyzed from the neck down occurred only a week earlier when she was still 20, she would have been eligible as a dependent child to collect part of his pension.

``We didn't lose because we didn't try,'' Ramona told her daughter as she wheeled her out of the Retired Fire and Police Association board room. ``It's time to move on with life.''

And that's exactly what mother and daughter did for the next eight years, living on a shoestring and moving a few times to less expensive housing until the telephone rang in their Santa Clarita mobile home one day a few months ago.

The call was from some retired firefighters and police officers finally getting a weight off their shoulders they'd been carrying since they watched Ramona wheel her daughter out of that hearing room - thanking them for listening to her.

``We were all touched by her situation,'' Henderson said. ``It wasn't right. Her dad was one of us, and she needed our help. But our bylaws didn't allow us to provide that help. It didn't sit well with any of us.''

There was only one thing to do, the men agreed. Work to change the bylaws, which they did a few years ago. Now the association representing 11,000 retired police officers and firefighters has coverage for emergency family situations like this.

``I went looking for Ramona and Michelle to tell them the good news, but I couldn't find them anywhere,'' Henderson said. ``They had moved a few times, and nobody knew where they were.''

Bob and Chris kept digging until they found Ramona and Michelle's current address a few months ago. They had $35,000 worth of good news to give them.

The men couldn't possibly know that after 18 years, the first and only used, handicapped-accessible van Ramona and her daughter could afford had finally died.

``We were trying to find another used one cheap when out of the blue these angels call,'' Ramona said Monday.

Michelle and her mom are getting around town these days in a 2003 handicapped-accessible minivan they bought recently for $30,400 from Advanced Mobility Works, a Van Nuys dealership that sells only handicapped-accessible vans.

The tab was picked up by some retired Los Angeles cops and firefighters doing the right thing.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Michelle Miller, 39, of Friendly Valley just received a new Dodge Caravan with a wheelchair lift, a gift from the Retired Fire and Police Association. Miller was paralyzed in a collision in 1987 but was denied benefits from her father's police pension because the crash occurred just a week after her eligibility ended.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer