Out-of-control

On Saturday, March 1st, I went on a police ridealong with Officer Osilka from 6-9 pm. It was relatively uneventful, mostly patrolling. A couple routine traffic stops.

And then just 24 hours later, at around 7:30 pm on March 2nd, Officer Osilka was shot during a routine traffic stop. Just like the ones I'd been on with him.

When I first heard about the shooting, it was unclear if the officer was even alive. And they didn't say who it was. But I knew Osilka was on duty that night, so my first thought went to him. I frantically tried to gather more information, and then I read the words: Officer Osilka. Shot.

By the time the 10:00 news came on they were already reporting the good news that he was expected to survive. And yet that news seemed so vague to me. "Survive" could still mean paralysis, brain damage...or he could be totally fine one day. And what if they were wrong? I did a lot of worrying and praying.

That night I had a choose-your-own-adventure-like series of dreams about the incident. That I was there and hid under the dashboard and he died because of my lack of help. That I was at his funeral. That I was there and gave a perfect description of the shooter, and they were able to catch him because of my witness testimony. That I was there and jumped out of the car and took off my jacket and held it on the wound to stop the bleeding, and saved his life. Pretty much every possible outcome in which I was involved in the situation came to me in my dreams.

And in the days that followed I was a wreck. Now, even though I wasn't actually there, my subconscious had provided me that vivid imagery of the shooting. I was having flashbacks when I hadn't even been there. Because if it had been one night before...I would've been. And would I have been able to do something? Was my lack of presence the reason the suspect(s) were still at large?

I thought back to the things we'd talked about on the ridealong. Had something I said somehow jinxed him? Had I caused this by putting bad thoughts out there? I dealt with so much guilt. I brought him a card and a gift but it just didn't seem like enough.

A counselor helped me see that all my thoughts - the good ones where I imagined myself having been a help in the situation, and the guilt that maybe I'd caused it - all tied back to one thing. It was an out-of-control situation, and my mind was trying to make sense of it by inserting myself into the situation. Good or bad, my mind was trying to put the situation within my control. (No surprise that I have control issues...)

It's been 2 months now since the shooting. I still think about it every time I pass a cop car that has pulled someone over. But the visuals are fading away. I still pray for him often, but now I've refocused my prayers to be more about thankfulness.

You see, at first I was just praying for his recovery, for his family, for the safety of the other officers as they bravely tracked down the perps. And those were important prayers. But a few weeks ago as I drove past the police station for the first time since I'd dropped off his gift the day after the shooting, I prayed a prayer of thanks for everything that had gone right.

Thanks that he survived. Thanks that he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. Thanks that the shooters shot him in the chest where the vest made a difference...not an unprotected place. Thanks that he DID have a ridealong who was far more useful than I would've been...a trained police officer friend from Florida. Thanks that the perps had been caught. Thanks that in the midst of these two evil people who committed this unspeakable act, Loveland was full of good people who'd showered their support on him with cards and concerns. The good people outweighed the bad. Thanks that his experience had given courage to a little girl about to undergo surgery. Thanks that he was going to make a full recovery. Thanks for his courage and integrity as he spoke about returning to the force in an interview I'd read.

Refocusing my prayer helped me see just how much God's hand was in all of this. He didn't stop the bad people from doing bad things...but he protected Osilka and even brought good out of it. And he protected me by not having me be there that day. It helped me to see that this wasn't the out-of-control situation my brain had been processing. Osilka had been in God's hands all along.