DETROIT (WXYZ) — From the moment a 19-year-old suspect opened fire on Detroit Police Department officers, lives were forever changed.
Two children lost their father, two parents lost their son and an entire department lost a friend, colleague and more.
“We lost a hero," said Cpl. Tonya Leonard-Gilbert of the Detroit Police Department. "Whenever we suffer something like that, it touches each and every one of us.”
Leonard-Gilbert has been with the Detroit Police Department for over 20 years and currently leads DPD’s peer support team. It's a team of 21 officers helping other officers in their toughest moments.
“Just you being there in the most horrific, horrible worst day, worst time of their life means everything to them,” Leonard- Gilbert said.
For many, Wednesday was that day when Officer Loren Courts was shot and killed in the line of duty. From outside the hospital to the scene of the shooting, officers consoled each other and DPD chaplains led in prayer.
“What I found out that’s most important is called the 'ministry of presence,'” DPD Chief Chaplain Lennell Caldwell said.
Caldwell, who is a pastor at a Detroit church, was at the hospital Wednesday with the family of Courts.
“Wow, it was horrific," Caldwell said. "To see a mama cry out and the children crying out, you have to compose yourself to be strength for them.”
Caldwell says the department has more than 100 volunteer chaplains, the largest chaplain corps in the country. Rabbis, imams, Catholic priests and pastors are all providing support on every run.
“That is our job," Caldwell said. "Just to touch another life and empower their life.”
Courts was killed in an ambush attack in front of his partner and responding officers. In 2018, the FBI ran a study on these attacks and interviewed over 30 officers who survived an ambush.
Jeff Daniels, Ph.D, a professor of counseling at West Virginia University, helped lead the study, which offered best practices to departments across the country.
“Many of them reported, obviously, some long-term psychological effects from this,” Daniels said of the surviving officers. "One of the things that helped the officers in our study the most was relying on each other and pulling together as a community.”
As the department continues to support the Courts family and each other, they ask the Detroit community for support too.
“We need your prayers, we are one Detroit," Leonard- Gilbert said. "We need to support each other.”
If you would like to donate to Courts' family to help with raising his kids, visit their GoFundMe page.
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