Family Matters – A Letter from Dallas

By Kathleen Brown –

The power of family. Law enforcement officers everywhere feel it, early on, as a solid support under their feet and a heavy responsibility on their shoulders.

When you’re sworn in as a rookie, you’re accepted into a family, one that extends beyond your Department, stretches past the city limits, and even crosses state lines. The law enforcement family. It’s tight. Your brothers and sisters on the force understand who you are and what you do and why you do it. They run the same risks you do, for the same reasons: to protect and serve. They know what your family at home goes through, because their families deal with the same challenges. They probably make up the majority of your friendships, because not everyone can—or wants to—relate to police officers, even when they’re off duty.

We’re here today to thank you for joining our Dallas Police Department family for a while. When there’s a death in the family, it seems we just can’t cry enough tears, not on our own. So we need you here, maybe more than ever before.

It’s no secret our job is a study in extremes. One minute we’re writing a traffic ticket and the next we’re dodging a drunk driver. You saw it close up on the evening of July 7: One minute we were glad for a peaceful end to a long march on a hot day and the next we were pushing demonstrators toward safety while we ran into the sound and sight and smell of gunfire.

You might not have noticed in the chaos of those first seconds, but you’ll be glad to know this: we didn’t hesitate. No matter what’s threatening the citizens of Dallas, it’s our job to look it in the eye and take care of it. That’s what we’re trained to do.

Of course, nobody gets shot in training; nobody dies in practice. But it wasn’t practice that evening. Black and white and more, among the marchers and among the police officers protecting them, all God’s people were represented. It may have looked like two separate groups, or maybe two separate families, each strong, each proud. One there to mourn and protest the deaths of too many of their members at the hands of police; the other, protecting them and their right to demonstrate.

Today, those two separate families are united in pain and loss. As we here in Dallas do our best to comfort and take care of families of the fallen officers, across the city—across the country—people are coming together to mourn all our losses and comfort all our families.

We at DPD see you. We hear you. Your support gives us strength to continue our work. For us, it’s not just a job—it’s our calling. Are we perfect? No. Are there problems that need to be addressed? Absolutely. But if we can trust each other in our mourning, if we can hug each other and console each other and mingle our tears, surely we’ve moved a little closer to living together with mutual respect.

All God’s people, part of one family. Amen to that.

Kathleen Brown is married to a 35-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department. A writer and speaker whose work addresses the needs of those who care at home for a loved one with Alzheimer’s, Kathleen is the author of A Time for Miracles: Finding Your Way through the Wilderness of Alzheimer’s. You can reach her through her blog www.hopeandhelpforalzheimers.wordpress.com or by email to kbrown.writer@gmail.com.