I am funding the jump myself so 100% of your donation will go to charity!

Leaving in October, I will be visiting the USA as a Winston Churchill Fellow visiting and working with the youth criminal justice system.

During one of my days off in December, I have decided to jump off the tallest observation tower in the USA; the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas! (as you do when you are scared of heights)

SkyJump Las Vegas holds the Guinness World Record for highest commercial decelerator descent with an official height of 829 ft (good to know?!)

I will be doing this for Care of Police Survivors (otherwise known as COPS). COPS is a UK registered charity dedicated to helping the families of police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, rebuild their lives. It aims to ensure that survivors have all the help they need to cope with such a tragedy, and that they remain part of the police family. COPS enables survivors to help survivors. Only another survivor can fully understand what new survivors endure, and that shared experience is the basis for the peer support programme.

Since 1680 more than 1,600 officers been killed by criminal acts and or in the line of duty.

Only recently in Hampshire, where I serve myself, we lost a collegaue; PC Steve Rawson. Steve tragically lost his life whilst on duty in a traffic collision just outside Southampton. But more than just a Cop, Steve was a father, a son, a husband and everything inbetween and whether you love the 'police' or love to hate them, people often forget that behind every Cop there is a family.

Other officers lost in the line of duty include (but not limited to):

September 2012 PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone were killed in a gun and grenade attack as they investigated a hoax burglary in Greater Manchester.

April 2009 PC Gary Toms, 37, was critically injured confronting suspects in a dead-end road in Leyton, east London. His life support machine was switched off six days later.

May 2007 PC Ricky Grey, 43, was shot in the head in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The gunman, Peter Medlicott, then turned the weapon on himself.

November 2005 PC Sharon Beshenivsky was shot dead when she and a colleague tried to stop armed robbers in Bradford. 

May 2004 DC Michael Swindells, 44, died after he was knifed in the stomach as he and colleagues conducted a search in Birmingham.

December 2003 PC Ian Broadhurst, 34, of West Yorkshire police, was shot dead in Leeds on Boxing Day. 

January 2003 DC Stephen Oake died during a police raid on a flat in Crumpsall, Manchester. Kamel Bourgass, an Algerian who had been plotting a ricin poison attack, was sentenced to life for his murder.

March 2001 PC Alison Armitage, 29, was run down by a stolen car during an undercover operation in Hollinwood, near Oldham.

October 1997 PC Nina Mackay was stabbed to death in a raid in Stratford, east London. She had removed her body armour because it was difficult to use the hydraulic ram to batter down the door while wearing the protective equipment. 

October 1985 PC Keith Blakelock, 40, was set upon by a mob during the Broadwater Farm riots. 

April 1984 PC Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in London while trying to control a crowd of demonstrators. 

Police officers also find themselves in danger while off-duty. In July this year PC Ian Dibell, 41, was shot dead near his home in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. He had been off work with a hand injury and had gone to help a neighbour who had been injured in a gun attack. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your donation! #StaySafe #RebuildingShatteredLives

Best wishes

Mark