By Diane Smith
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas — Tara Higgins makes sure her cellphone battery isn’t low when her daughter, a police officer, goes to work.
Once her daughter’s workday starts, Higgins listens to a police scanner, counting the hours until the shift ends.
She is diligent about sending her daughter a daily text, much like leaving a note in a child’s lunchbox: “Be careful. I love you.”
“It’s just so she knows, ‘My mom knows I am at work. My mom is thinking about me,’ ” Higgins said of her daughter, who is 23 and has been working for the Frisco Police Department since April.
Recent ambushes of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., have darkened the shadow of anxiety that comes with being the parent — or wife, son, grandfather, friend — of a cop.
“I just hugged her one million times,” Higgins said, recalling the first time she saw her daughter after the July 7 sniper attack in Dallas, which left five officers dead.
The attack on police officers in downtown Dallas began at the end of a peaceful march by protesters suppporting Black Lives Matter, a movement that emerged with the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., continued with the 2015 deaths of Christian Taylor in Arlington and Sandra Bland in Waller County, and escalated with the recent killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
The July 17 Baton Rouge shooting, which like the attack in Dallas was also carried out by a lone gunman, left three police officers dead, the latest numbers in an alarming trend.
The number of police officers killed with guns this year has increased 78 percent compared with last year, according to a national report released Wednesday.
“What matters to the people who are targeting us is not the color of the skin, but the badge on the chest,” said Amy Michlitsch, whose husband is a policeman in Haltom City.
Since the shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge, many police departments, including Fort Worth, have doubled up on patrols and taken other protective measures.
In an effort to find solutions and calm the storm, town hall meetings have been held across the nation, featuring police chiefs, community leaders and politicians — inlcuding President Barack Obama.
At a community forum Tuesday night, Joel Fitzgerald, Fort Worth’s first black police chief, talked about the importance of building relationships.
“We need to break through now to the next generation of kids out there so they understand we’re here to provide a service to them,” Fitzgerald said.
Fort Worth school Trustee Christene Moss shared her thoughts at a recent school board meeting. Her essay, Stop the Violence, is an effort to build empathy for young black men and police, she said.
“You just can’t label police because they have families too,” Moss said. “The violence needs to stop.”
‘When is it going to stop?’
Teresa Cruz Nava-Salazar understands the fear and has felt the pain of losing a husband in the line of duty. Fort Worth officer Henry “Hank” Nava, Jr. was killed in 2005 while trying to make an arrest.
“It brings back a lot of memories from the day my husband was killed,” she said of the recent shootings. “When is it going to stop?”
Three officers have been shot in Tarrant County this year, including Euless officer David S. Hofer. He was killed March 1 while responding to a call at a city park and was ambushed by a 22-year-old drug addict who previously threatened to kill police.
Two weeks later, Fort Worth police officer Matt Pearce was critically injured after being shot while chasing fugitives. He was hospitalized for two months.
Arlington police officer Eddie Johnston was wounded in a shootout with a murder suspect in April. He was treated and released a few hours after being shot.
“It is so scary to be in law enforcement, period,” Nava-Salazar said. “How do you prepare? ... They do their job 100 percent when they are out there. Unfortunately, some don’t make it home and it is heartbreaking.”
The Dallas ambush created a deep sense of horror among police families, said Jeff Halstead, who retired as Fort Worth’s police chief in 2015.
“They are very, very fearful of their husbands, sons or daughter going to work,” Halstead said. “Now, you are wondering which call is gong to be the call.”
Law enforcement runs in the family for Ralph Mendoza, another former Fort Worth police chief, who retired in 2008. He has two sons, two nephews and a son-in-law in law enforcement. He also has a nephew who will enter the police academy in August.
“You understand what they are going to go through,” Mendoza said. “They [law enforcement families] accept that it is a dangerous job.”
Mendoza said he relies on knowing that his family members are getting training that teaches them how to de-escalate confrontations instead of making them worse.
“You can’t go out there with them,” Mendoza said. “You have to have faith that they got the proper training.”
The Rev. Tim Polley, a law enforcement chaplain in Carrollton, Ky., created the Facebook page Parents of Law Officers about two years ago to comfort police families. His son is a public safety officer at a university in St. Louis. After the Dallas ambush, the page surged with hundreds of new people from across the country seeking the online community.
“Parents of law enforcement officers are scared,” Polley said. “We lay awake at night hoping that the phone doesn’t ring.”
‘This is my daughter’
On July 7, Higgins was watching a movie when a news app on her cellphone buzzed with the word “ambush.”
Higgins, a former 911 dispatcher from Denton County, stayed up until 2 a.m. watching the news.
Later that morning, Higgins didn’t want to release her daughter from a hug. While concerned for her safety, she is immensely proud of her daughter.
“This is my daughter. She is a police officer. If you have a problem with that, you have to go through me,” Higgins said.
Nava-Salazar said she and her husband, Richard Salazar, could not believe what they were seeing happen in downtown Dallas.
“My husband and I were just sitting in our living room just watching it unfold on TV. I was just crying,” she said.
Nava-Salazar said that anytime police officers are killed, she gets flooded with text messages from family and friends, all offering their support.
“People realize it brings back memories,” she said,
She said that if her 15-year-old son, Henry “Hank” Nava III, decides to pursue law enforcement, she won’t discourage him. He is in the Fort Worth Police Explorer program and appears to be interested in police work.
“If that is what God has in his plans for his life, I definitely would never stand in his way of doing that,” she said.
“It takes a special person to be a law enforcement officer,” she said.
‘A hug, kiss and high five’
In Haltom City, Michlitsch and her husband have a simple workday routine.
“He gives me a kiss and hug and our three kids a kiss, hug and high five before he leaves,” she said, adding that their family prayers are “a continuous conversation with God.”
When Michlitsch’s husband comes home for lunch — which is in the evening for them — he prays with his wife and children before bedtime.
Officer J. Michlitsch said in a statement that despite the attacks on police, he remains committed to serving others.
“These cowards failed to realize the courage and tenacity that it takes to wear this badge and could not understand that our hurt will not change our goal,” he said. “When we signed on for this profession, we did not sign up to be shot, killed or attacked, but we knew that possibility existed and would continue to exist. ... We signed up to be the barrier between the monsters and the weak; the sheepdogs, who will protect the sheep at all costs, even when the sheep don’t want us around.”
Amy Michlitsch has spearheaded efforts to provide comfort for police families, including the creation of a private Facebook page after the slaying of Hofer in Euless, and another Facebook page, Haltom City Police Wives.
While she uses social media to show support, she said others use Twitter and Facebook to spread hate, creating an anti-police sentiment.
“A lot of us refer to this as post-Ferguson,” Michlitsch said. “After that happened, our world changed.”
She wants people to understand that the vast majority of police officers truly live to protect and serve. She said people shouldn’t judge everyone by the actions of a few.
“It is costing officers their lives,” she said.
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