Closure

This past week has been understandably difficult. Granted, Sunday and Monday were my fault–I’m still not used to taking medicine in the morning rather than at night.

The good news is, they caught Roman and Reyes, and Roman, at least, had a court appearance today.  It’s a huge relief, I think, for the community.  I know that the emergency service family of Millard County is still mourning, and I don’t think Josie’s family will ever stop.  For me, though, there is a feeling of closure.

Of course, while I’m not crying for blood, I’m a little worried that if and when Roman is convicted, and if he gets the death penalty, he’ll decided that he wants to be a Mexican citizen, and there will be a whole international incident.  I asked Google about illegal aliens on death row, and it pointed me to the case of Jose Medellin, who was executed in Texas in 2008. So it has been done, but the UN, Amnesty International, and, for some reason, President Bush weren’t happy about it.

Anyway, that’s years away, and even though I’m a worrier, I’m doing a pretty good job of putting it out of my mind.  I have faith in the justice system, but if I get called for jury duty, I’m going to tell them that I think the bastard should hang.

On a more personal note, I’ve been a little surprised at how all this stress and shock has affected me. I have been depressed, but it has been different than it usually is.  I’ve been having the physical symptoms of depression–body aches and fatigue, but, since Tuesday night, anyway, I haven’t really had the emotional symptoms.  Strangest, perhaps, was yesterday.  My core body was cold, but my extremities–my arms, legs, hands, feet and face were burning up.  I wondered if I had a fever (I’m a bit of  a hypochondriac, which I’m sure will become abundantly clear as this blog progresses)–I didn’t.  So I asked WebMd and Google, and they both said that was a symptom of a panic attack/anxiety disorder.  I wasn’t feeling particular anxious, though.  Except about my extremities burning up while my core was cold.

Anyway,  I have a feeling of closure, though that may leave once the trial starts.  I’m debating going to the funeral on Monday–again, I didn’t know Josie all that well.  I’ll support my home town in any way I can, but for now, I’m ready to move on.

Grief

Today’s post has had several false starts.  It’s strange, I know I want to talk about Josie, but I don’t know which direction I want to take.

I thought about taking the position of, in the words of my cousin “the racist, right-winged nut-job” but that’s not me.  Yes, I’m frustrated that Roman is in the country illegally, and that he had been previously deported back to Mexico.  But at the same time, I know that most Hispanics, even most illegal aliens are law-abiding (for the most part) and aren’t looking for any trouble.

I did want to mention that after my sister posted on Facebook that she was “Sad, and needs cheering up” I decided I was sad and needed cheering up too, so I made my yearly stop at the Krispy Kreme (yes, I only go there about once a year, despite it being the closest place to my house to buy food) because sweet carbohydrates make me less sad, and headed up to her house.

My sister lives about 40 miles away from me. A fair distance, but close enough that we see each other quite frequently.  The thing is, that on the drive to her house, I usually see (or notice, maybe) one or two cops.  Yesterday, I saw more than a dozen, all with lights flashing, most with someone pulled over.  I don’t know how much it had to do with Josie, but I realized that the law enforcement community must be hurting, too.  I also noticed the “racist, right-winged nut-job” coming out in me, as I was looking at the other drivers, and panicked a little bit when I saw two Hispanic men in a car together.  Never mind that the car in question was a gray Datsun hatchback–about as far away from an orange Corvette as you could get and still have a vehicle.

Part of me wanted to take the wildly-inappropriate humor route, and say something along the lines of “It’s not every day that a tragedy in your home develops a twist that would be considered too cheesy for a Lifetime movie.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this KSL report.

The thing is, even though I didn’t really know Josie, I know many of the supporting members of this drama (man, that sounds cold). Sgt. Kimball is my parent’s next door neighbor.  I know her mother, some of her siblings (but not Ryan), her aunts and uncles and cousins.  My dad has worked with Josie closely, in his capacity as an EMT,  and I think what he said on Facebook sums things up nicely:

This has affected me more than any other thing I have faced as an EMT, even the death of a child. Part of it is that we were both part of the “family” of emergency services, but the fact that it was not an accident, but a deliberate taking of life of someone that I knew and worked with.

I am not a member of the family of emergency services that Dad talks about, but I think this explains why I’m feeling the way that I am.  Josie was doing her job.  And yes, being a cop is dangerous anywhere, even, apparently, in a county with less than 13,000 people, but her death was so unexpected.

When I was out with the dogs this morning, I was trying to remember the last time I mourned like this, and the answer I came up with was 9/11.  Yes, I’ve lost friends and family members in the past decade, and have mourned the loss of public figures, including a prophet of God, but those deaths were caused by disease or accident, not a deliberate taking of life.

I spent a lot of time praying yesterday, praying for comfort for the Foxes and Greathouses.  Praying for healing in the community–both in Millard County and in the law enforcement/emergency service community.  I’ve come to a place where, I’m still sad, but I feel at peace.  I can’t explain why things have unfolded the way they have, but I trust in a higher power that everything will be made right.

Goodbye, Deputy Greathouse-Fox.  You were a hero, and an example.  Your sacrifice will not be soon forgotten.  Delta, and the world, was a better place because of you.

A fallen hero

I love being from a small town.  I feel safe when I go to visit my parents house.  The biggest thing I ever had to worry about growing up was, well, the experiment I’ve mentioned earlier, but besides that, maybe a traffic accident.

My dad is an EMT in my home town.  As part of this job, he was given a police scanner/pager.  It is a source of moderate entertainment at our house, as most of the calls that come across are speeders who have been pulled over, usually someone we know.  Occasionally, there’ll be something big on the east side of the county, where the freeway goes through, more often than not a chase involving a suspect vehicle out of Salt Lake of Las Vegas.

The news out of Millard County this morning would have been shocking anywhere, I think, but it was made more so by the fact that it happened in Delta.   Police Deputy Josie Greathouse Fox was shot and killed in the line of duty this morning.

Official Sheriff’s Department Statement

Josie was enough older than me that I don’t remember going through school with her, even though we would have ridden the bus together.  She was friends with some of my cousins, and was a member of Mom’s Young Women class. I remember the fire she had when she joined the sheriff’s office.  Hers was the first female voice I ever heard over my Dad’s police scanner, that didn’t belong to dispatch.  Okay, or an EMT.

I know it took Josie a while to discover her path in life, but when she decided to be a cop, she jumped in with both feet.

Josie, you will be missed.  You were a great example.  You were a hero.