V.I.P.O. Co-Founder Publishes Biography on Career, Being Shot, and a Finding a Second Purpose in Life

‘You Effectively Get Punished for Surviving’

Somerville Police Detective Mario Oliveira was shot six times while attempting to arrest a man wanted on a federal arrest warrant for trafficking firearms. He thought he was dying as he lay on a street in Somerville bleeding heavily in 2010.

One of Boston’s top trauma surgeons operating on Oliveira for nine hours. Oliveira defied expectations and survived, even briefly returning to police work after recovering.

A subsequent heart attack and stroke that were related to his gunshot wounds would soon end Oliveira’s 17-year law enforcement career. He eventually realized that his growing family would be better off financially if he had not survived.

“It was bad enough to have post-traumatic stress and reoccurring nightmares. But now, this was something else. At least with a mission and purpose in life, I had the will to push through the broken memories and lack of sleep. I went from going back to work – to having a heart attack – to being unemployed and receiving only a partial service retirement. I felt my world coming apart. If I wasn’t well enough to work, how could I even figure out another way to support my family.”

“You effectively get punished for surviving,” Oliveira said.

Oliveira, 53, recently published his autobiography, “Gunrunner,” which recounts his career, the shooting, recovery, and the journey he experienced as he found a new purpose in life: assisting other injured officers.

Oliveira, co-founded the Violently Injured Police Officers Organization to push for nationwide change in the way severely injured first responders are treated. In Massachusetts, for example, first responders who are violently injured receive smaller benefits than those made available to families of officers killed in the line of duty. State law also limits how much outside income injured officers can earn if they are able to perform other jobs.

The biography details Oliveira’s life, from his years as a Portuguese immigrant growing up in Somerville, to his love of serving a police department where he was one of few bilingual officers, and quickly rose through the ranks to work with a federal task force aimed at stopping illegal gun sales.

Oliveira cowrote the book with author Keith Knotek, a retired law enforcement officer who experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of events he experienced during his law enforcement career in California.

Oliveira and Knotek detail the investigation that connected Detective Oliveira to the man who would later shoot him six times, as well as the moments on a dark street in Somerville when Oliveira thought he was taking his last breaths.

 “At that moment, it was like a switch got flipped in my mind. I went from feeling shear panic into a state of peace. I remembered playing hide and seek and street hockey as a kid on Rush Street. My brain tuned out all of the commotions around me and was preparing me to go to a beautiful place. Tonight would be the night that I die.”

The book also introduces readers to Dr. David King, a U.S. Army trauma surgeon who works with Special Operations Forces, and an attending surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital Trauma Center. Dr. King, who has used his skills to save lives ranging from special forces operators on the battlefield in Afghanistan, to victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing, to Red Sox Hall of Famer David Ortiz, performed nine hours of surgery on Oliveira at MGH.

“Dr. King told me and my family that I had died three times, once in the trauma bay area and twice in the operating room. Dr. King went on to say that one of the times my heart went into cardiac arrest, he cut my diaphragm and reached into my heart with his bare hand and squeezed it back to life. I was completely in disbelief, as was my family.”

The book concludes with the journey that has led Oliveira to co-found V.I.P.O., which is now working to share model legislation in states across the country to ensure that first responders who suffer career-ending injuries in the line of duty do not face a similar dilemma to that faced by Oliveira. 

“I have been on a mission since 2013 to effectuate change that would provide permanently injured police officers with 100% of their base pay and allow them to get the raises that they would have received had they not been critically injured as a result.”

Endorsements note that while the book is focused on a law enforcement story, it contains spirituality, faith, and a human-interest story that transcends genres and life experiences. 

“Immediate takeaways from this book are that vulnerability and authentic human connection can heal even the most broken parts of us; no matter what we encounter, there’s always hope for a better day. Anyone engaged in law enforcement, the military, and healthcare would benefit from reading Gunrunner; however, the book appeals to a much broader audience as the experiences and lessons are universally felt,” wrote Dr. Sarah E. Abbott, Director of the William James College Center for Crisis Response and Behavioral Health.

“With wars currently waging in Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia, and during a time when things seem so unclear and convoluted, it’s nice to read about actual events that do not include politics, racial bias, and political correctness. This book hits the mark in that it is a genuine human-interest story that contains all of the elements of faith, true crime, action, compassion, and revelation,” wrote Brigadier Gen. (Ret.) David L. Grange.   

To purchase Gunrunner, click here.

Fisher College, in Boston, is planning to host a book signing event featuring Oliveira on Oct. 5. Additional details of that event will be forthcoming. Fisher College also offers the Detective Mario Oliveira Scholarship, which provides a 25 percent discount off tuition toward a master’s degree in Criminal Justice for law enforcement officers, officers who suffered permanent injuries on the job, and family members of fallen officers. For more information on the Detective Mario Oliveira Scholarship, click here.