Rocked

You know how sometimes, there are things that happen in the news that just really hit you hard?

That happened to me last week with the death of Officer Daryl Pierson. I was up kind of late on Wednesday night, and before I went to bed, I heard on TV and via social media that a police officer had been shot and killed in downtown Rochester. I found myself staying up for the live news coverage, trying to wait for the middle-of-the-night news conference that would maybe reveal his identity. I was panicking a little, having a few connections in my life to the RPD.

I ended up falling asleep before the news conference, but when I woke up in the morning, I found out that they had not yet released his name. They were giving the family more time to notify their entire family, and scheduled a mid-morning news conference. In the meantime, I learned more and knew it was very unlikely I was going to know this man. But I was still dreading learning his name, and learning his story.

Sure enough, it was just about as bad as it could get. Officer Pierson was 32 years old, married for 10 years, father of two small children—a 4-year-old boy (who had started kindergarten the same day his father died) and a 3-month-old girl. He had served in Afghanistan with the Army, then with the Rochester Police Department for eight years before his untimely, senseless death.

Additional details about the man who shot him also came to light. A career criminal, who was just released on parole from prison on August 11 after serving three years for robbery. The guy was out for just three weeks and managed to shatter a young family—taking a husband away from a wife, taking a father away from his babies.

I can’t even.

I haven’t been able to shake the tragedy from my mind and my heart. I know that people die young and unexpectedly all of the time. I know that none of us know when our time will be up, or when we will lose our own loved one. But this man seemed to be so good. He gave so much of himself to not only his family, but to this country, and this community. How unfortunate for all of us to lose such a soul.

My heart is broken for his family. I definitely find myself squeezing mine a little tighter in the days since. It just hit so close to home. Officer Pierson was our age. Their children are similar in age to ours. They lived a happy, normal little life in a home in the suburbs, just like we do. And now that’s gone.

I passed by a local fire station on Friday morning and saw that their sign out front read, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Rochester PD” and their flag flew at half mast. I teared up. It has touched everyone. People are sad, and outraged.

And there is no way to comprehend why this happened.

My thoughts have definitely been with the Piersons. I can’t express how sorry I am for their loss, and I know the entire area is feeling the same way.

{As if our local community wasn’t hit hard enough by Officer Pierson’s death, we saw on Friday the crazy news story of a small, private plane that was flying over the Atlantic, pilot unresponsive. Live coverage was being broadcast on CNN, MSNBC, and more, and we soon learned it had a local connection. That plane was from Rochester, carrying two very influential and successful local entrepreneurs—Larry and Jane Glazer—who were heavily invested in the revitalization of downtown Rochester and the betterment of this area. The plane ended up crashing in the ocean off the shore of Jamaica, and remains missing. It has been a hell of a week around here.}