Mike Gumz insists all he ever wanted to do was follow in his dad’s footsteps and be a cop.
And he was. A good one. Until he became addicted to drugs.
Now the 47-year-old two-time Kane County Officer of the Year is working the toughest case of his life: battling to stay sober after prescription drugs led to a swift and devastating fall that cost him everything – his family, his home, his reputation and his beloved Badge 165, the same number his dad proudly wore.
"What takes five minutes to mess up," said the tall lanky Gumz, "can take a lifetime to put back together."
Among the family photos in the East Side Aurora home where he was raised are those of a little boy, wearing his father’s police cap while perched atop a wooden rocking horse, sitting in a paddy wagon or in a parade with his hero and dad, Sgt. David Gumz, who retired after 27 years with the Aurora department.
Mike Gumz’s own career in law enforcement began in 1988 at age 18 as an Aurora police cadet. A couple years later he was hired by Montgomery, where he earned Kane County Police Officer of the Year in 1992 for administering CPR to an accident victim on a snowy winter day.
In 1993, Gumz joined the Aurora force, working as a beat officer, in the gang unit, homicide division, on the SWAT team and undercover with the North Central Narcotics Task Force. In 2003 he again was awarded Kane County’s Officer of the Year for saving a newborn’s life by administering CPR.
Gumz seemed to have achieved everything he’d always wanted both professionally and personally. On Father’s Day in 2002, he was again featured in The Beacon-News in a story about cops and their kids after his then 9-year-old daughter won a writing essay.
"When I watch my dad be nice to other kids and people it teaches me a good lesson to be nice," she wrote. "He helps other people not to do drugs and he helps me not to do drugs. Not everyone has a dad that comes home from taking bad guys off the street. My dad is an amazing person. Not many people are lucky like me."
But fate threw a big curveball to this Aurora family in the summer of 2006 when, while working second shift on patrol, Gumz’s squad car was T-boned at Broadway and New York Street by an intoxicated man driving the wrong way.
"I got out and I fell down, so I knew something was very wrong because I couldn’t stand," he recalls of that life-changing moment. "So when (the suspect) started to run, I just sat there, on the ground and pointed my gun at him, waiting for backup …"
Gumz suffered a broken neck that required two plates and prescription drugs to dull the sharp pain that now had become his constant companion. But as is often the case, he began to rely too heavily on those pills. Even after the pain became more bearable, dealing with opiate withdrawal did not.
Mike Gumz Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News Former Aurora police officer Mike Gumz reflects back on his years in law enforcement and the addiction to pain medication that cost him everything, including his career and his family. Former Aurora police officer Mike Gumz reflects back on his years in law enforcement and the addiction to pain medication that cost him everything, including his career and his family. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)
"The more you take, the more you need to get relief," he said. So Gumz kept increasing the amount he consumed until "I was taking 50 Norcos a day, 10 at a time or about 500 milligrams a day."
The former captain of Aurora Central Catholic High School’s baseball and basketball teams, who shunned alcohol and drugs for most of his life, according to family members, was now ordering so many drugs on the Internet, "the UPS guy and I," noted Gumz, "were on a first-name basis."
It wasn’t like Gumz didn’t try to stop as things began spinning out of control. Following a family intervention a year later, Gumz checked into a Florida detox center, only to relapse a couple months later after he began popping pills for a back injury.
It should come as no surprise his behavior at work became erratic, suspicious and confrontational. Gumz said he could no longer get along with the command staff and knew he was being watched closely by his peers who witnessed him "screwing up" time and again.
"But no one said anything and I did not ask for help," he said.
It was, Gumz now realizes, a critical mistake on both parts.
For years alcohol has, by far, been the most abused substance among police, experts say. But according to Police magazine, that distinction today belongs to pain killers, a fact that should surprise no one who understands that police departments represent a microcosm of society.
Because there’s been a dramatic increase in opiate abuse among the general public, noted former Aurora Police Chief Greg Thomas, who was a commander toward the end of Gumz’s career and is now chief in Darien, "then there is likely going to be an issue with officers, as well, particularly when you consider the pressures and stress they are under."
Officers hurt on the job and prescribed pain medications develop addictions more than many people realize, say experts. Which is why the more progressive departments are implementing programs to help these struggling cops. And the best way to start, they insist, is to put the problem front and center.
Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman’s attitude about drug addiction turned less "black and white" she said after becoming the department’s liaison with the Kane County Drug Court, where nonviolent offenders have a chance to turn their lives around rather than face time behind bars. Here, she came to understand there was a "difference between a criminal who takes drugs and a drug addict who turns to crime because of an addiction."
"As police officers we all need to have a change of heart and mind," she said, adding that Aurora has been going through such a metamorphosis over the last few years. That includes the 2013 police contract with the city that contained a provision spelling out how no adverse employment action would be taken against an officer for a serious transgression if he or she had previously admitted to a drug or alcohol problem.
Ziman also said that the first thing she did when becoming chief was to begin "changing the culture of that stigma that keeps officers from seeking help because they see it as a sign of weakness."
Among those steps is the Northern Illinois Critical Incident Stress Management program that gives officers an opportunity to meet – unmandated but with overtime compensation – to discuss their feelings after being involved in a dire situation, either on or off the job.
Mike Gumz Beacon-News / File photo A Beacon-News photographer snapped this shot of Mike Gumz while administering CPR to an accident victim as a young police officer with Montgomery. His quick actions led to him being honored in 1992 as Kane County Police Officer of the Year, an award he received again in 2003 while working for Aurora police. A Beacon-News photographer snapped this shot of Mike Gumz while administering CPR to an accident victim as a young police officer with Montgomery. His quick actions led to him being honored in 1992 as Kane County Police Officer of the Year, an award he received again in 2003 while working for Aurora police. (Beacon-News / File photo)
"I have to tell you, there have been more conversations coming out of those meetings as officers are finally giving themselves permission to say, ‘this is happening to me… and I need help’… and to realize they are not the only ones out there struggling," Ziman said.
While there was a version of this program in place when Gumz was in trouble, there was a strong belief, according to Aurora Sgt. Bill Rowley, that the Employee Assistance Program, which operated it, reported back to the city. "So hardly anyone utilized it," he said, "for fear of reprisals."
Plus, there were few if any practitioners trained in how to manage stressors related to public safety, added Rowley.
Now, under his leadership, the Aurora Police Department is in the process of writing policy for a Peer Support Program that would, among other things, train officers to identify problems when their colleagues are struggling with addiction, depression, PTSD or other mental health issues that traditionally have gone ignored or undetected.
The more progressive police departments, according to both Ziman and Rowley, are looking at the officer as a "whole person" who needs to be both mentally and physically strong. And that represents "a whole different culture now then there was back then," noted Rowley.
Ziman agrees. If Gumz’s accident would have occurred in 2016 instead of 2006, she said, there is a far greater likelihood "he could have gotten the help he needed."
For Gumz, under scrutiny and investigation, the situation came to a breaking point. In 2008, with his once-commendable record in shambles, he knew he would be fired if he didn’t quit first. His sister Michelle, who retired last year after almost 19 years as a dispatcher with the APD’s emergency call center, said the night before he turned in his resignation, she tried to intervene for her brother by begging for help for him.
But Gumz had yet to hit rock bottom.
After another "embarrassing" and "short stint" with a much smaller police department, Gumz says he obtained his EMT license but knew he had no chance of a career in a field "when drugs were so available."
In a year’s time, he said, his drug habit ate up the entire $95,000 he got from his workman’s comp claim. He also lost his $400,000 Yorkville home, his two luxury cars, and, most importantly, his wife – who was also in law enforcement – and his children, all of whom eventually moved to Springfield.
An addict, even while watching his life fall apart, is often helpless to stop the slide, as are those who love them. "Devastating" is how Michelle Gumz describes what it was like watching her brother, "who is one of the sweetest, most purely good people I know" turn into "a lying stealing addict" who eventually went from mixing Xanax and Valium to smoking crack cocaine.
"I was police. And here I was engaging in criminal behavior," he admitted. "So I took more drugs to forget because I just couldn’t live with the shame and the guilt."
Like many officers, Gumz said he never touched heroin because "I saw what it could do and it scared the crap out of me." Still, he overdosed three times on pills, including one incident when North Aurora paramedics had to revive him.
Gumz family Provided by Gumz family Even as a young boy, Mike Gumz wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father Sgt. Dave Gumz, who retired after 27 years with the Aurora Police Department. Even as a young boy, Mike Gumz wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father Sgt. Dave Gumz, who retired after 27 years with the Aurora Police Department. (Provided by Gumz family)
Gumz’s legal problems began in earnest in 2010. While driving on Interstate 55 in Livingston County on his way to visit his children, another driver noticed him nodding off behind the wheel. Troopers, he said, were waiting for him at the next rest area and he was charged with his first DUI. Less than a month later, again on a trip to see his children, he said he got a second DUI that landed him in jail for 90 days. And the downward spiral only got worse.
"I did not want to feel the hurt I caused," Gumz said, "so I kept using to dull the pain."
Now on food stamps and living in his widowed father’s home, Gumz began mowing grass and doing odd jobs to make ends meet. On June 6, 2010, a friend’s relative hired him to stain his Sugar Grove deck. High on prescription meds and cocaine after what he described as "a three-day binge," the former Officer of the Year said he got into the homeowner’s medicine chest and, after taking Ambien pills he found there, ransacked the bedroom.
Gumz said that although he does not remember what happened next, he found out later he’d left the guns and cash he found in the garage but took some jewelry. The next thing he knew, a Sugar Grove police officer and about a half dozen "of my friends" surrounded his father’s home.
"They didn’t know what to expect when they came to arrest me," he said. "They knew I was good with guns but didn’t know I’d given all of them to my brother-in-law."
That low point was followed by what Gumz described as a "half-ass" attempt to hang himself with his shoelaces in a Sugar Grove jail cell. He was taken to Kane County where "I knew everybody in the entire cell block" because he’d arrested so many of them.
Because Kane didn’t have the resources or room to keep him in protective custody or on suicide watch, Gumz was transferred to Kendall County, where he spent the next seven months in isolation facing a new terror: the prospect of prison.
"When you are police … they will kill you," he said.
Gumz credits attorney Richard Irvin with saving his life, first, by "keeping me in jail so I would not get high;" and then convincing the judge to let him enter Kane County Drug Court.
Irvin, who is also an Aurora alderman and mayoral candidate, said he went to bat for Gumz because, even as a young prosecutor, he saw first-hand what an outstanding officer Gumz was, in addition to being "one of the nicest and most sincere human beings I knew."
When Irvin found himself across the table from this decorated cop now sitting in an orange jumpsuit and retelling the circumstances that landed him there, "my jaw just kept dropping," said the attorney.
"Rarely do I do pro bono work. But I recognized something so good in him," he said. "I knew he was worth it."
Irvin ended up writing "the best mitigation package" of his career in order to convince prosecutors to keep his client out of prison. Eighteen months later, after Gumz graduated from Drug Court and, after spending 90 days at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Lake Villa, "the real work" of staying sober began, he said.
"I can proudly say I’ve not taken any drugs, legal or illegal, since then," he insisted. "Even when I’ve got pain from past injuries, I just won’t take the chance."
Gumz also has obtained a certificate in Alcohol and Drug Counseling through Waubonsee Community College and hopes to take the state exam in the near future so he can look for employment helping others in their recovery. He’s still got plenty of hurdles ahead, however. His felony record – the charges were dropped to attempted burglary, according to Irvin – means Gumz can no longer be a cop. But it’s also tough finding employment of any kind with a criminal record and no driver’s license.
Although Gumz is slowly rebuilding a relationship with his children, he struggles with loneliness and guilt. And staying sober, he admitted, "is a daily fight," as he knows it will be the rest of his life.
While he’s lost just about everything, Gumz said he’s grateful "I’m still around walking this earth." He’s particularly thankful for his father who is not only supporting him financially while he’s unemployed, but drives him where he needs to go to get that life back on track.
"I’m disappointed," said Dave Gumz of the way his son’s addiction derailed a promising career. "But I’m proud of what he’s doing now. And I’ll always support him because he’s my kid."
The younger Gumz smiles when he hears those words. His downward spiral opened his eyes to what really matters most, he said. And what it all comes down to is family.
"My dad," he said, "will always be my hero."
Dcrosby@tribpub.com
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