Trenton, Fla. – A police officer who crashed his car into a convenience store when his cowboy boot slipped off the brake said Wednesday he was embarrassed and not opposed to a new department ban on the smooth-soled footwear.
“They had leather soles, and when I hit the brake, my foot slipped off and hit the accelerator. It was my fault,” said Mi chael Herko, one of two full- time officers in this rural town.
Herko, 62, said he was pulling into the store when his squad car crashed Sunday night. The 40-year police veteran was wearing a type of cowboy boot called ropers. Herko’s patrol car crashed through the store’s two glass doors.
As a result of the crash, Police Chief Bill Smith banned cowboy boots for officers on duty.
“This has never been an issue before because it had never been a problem,” Smith said. “It came up now because I knew he was a good driver and a good officer so I knew there had to be something mechanical involved, and that is why we got to looking at the cowboy boots.”
