'Hungering for goodness and justice': Mourners gather in KCK to honor slain deputies
For a moment, the last words of "Amazing Grace" didn't come.
In an aching silence, the family members of slain Wyandotte County Deputies Theresa King and Patrick Rohrer who were in the front rows of a candlelight vigil Sunday night wrapped their arms together more tightly. They pressed heads deeper into the shoulders next to them.
Law officers close by knelt by them and laid arms over some of their backs, while the entire crowd of more than a thousand outside the City Hall in Kansas City, Kan., shuddered with a collective pain as the brokenhearted singer regathered his strength.
This is the struggle that lies ahead for a community that "hungers for goodness and justice," Mayor David Alvey said when he addressed the crowd moments before.
It is the struggle Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer shared with the crowd, knowing "tears are not enough" in mourning the deaths of King and Rohrer. King was "the glue that kept things together" for her family and her co-workers," Colyer said. And Rohrer was remembered as "kind, deliberate, gentle and strong."
"The very best of Kansas," Colyer said, "right here, no longer with us."
It is a pain that Wyandotte County Sheriff Donald Ash said has forced a lump into his throat and an abiding anger, saying he wishes "it be God's will that the killer (of the two deputies) die."
Ash said he was quoting another deputy in another time suffering the same pain as him after he saw the aftermath of the killing of King, 44, and Rohrer, 35, when they were shot Friday morning by a prisoner they were preparing to transport from the courthouse back to the jail.
Ash had remained at the scene in the fenced-in transfer area where the shooting occurred, and he walks around now "bewildered" and feeling "there is no use in the guy surviving."
But the sworn officers, like him and all those in the crowd among them, will "have to push on," Ash said, "obey commands," continue practicing at the firing range, getting "center mass" shots down and practicing "a few head shots like the one perpetrated on our deputies."
At the end of his remarks, Ash prayed, "Let us not be overcome by evil."
The people sharing this pain are searching for "the light" that Chaplain Ken Nettling said is the light of "hope, strength and peace."
Soon the singer, Det. Danon Vaughn, found his strength, finishing a reprise of the opening verse of "Amazing Grace" in a soaring tenor solo, unaccompanied in the hot summer breeze.
"Was blind, but now I see ..."
And then, because the winds didn't allow candles to be lit, the crowd raised the lights from their cellphones, like a field of twinkling stars in the dusk, as Chaplain D. Freeman prayed.
"As we hold up the light in this dark hour," he said, "bless the light now, Father. Bless the light now."
A public funeral for the deputies is scheduled for Thursday.
Mourners will come like they did Sunday in a show of love and unity in the face of a tragedy that has happened too often in Wyandotte County, said Lacey Langford, 34, of Kansas City, Kan. King and Rohrer were the third and fourth law enforcement officers to be killed in the line of duty in the county since 2016.
"Look around at all the (police) forces here," she said. "All of us are here.
"It's humbling," she said. "Our officer's hold to a standard. It sets our city apart. That's the unity here."
At the courthouse, a wreath and two blue candles were placed at the granite memorial for the county's fallen law enforcement officers. Firetrucks blocked Seventh Street outside City Hall, where a somber crowd dressed in black and blue gathered under flags flown at half-staff.
Less than a block away, the crude memorial grew at the fenced-in transfer area where the deputies were shot. Mourners stopped by on the way to the vigil, leaving blue and black balloons, red and blue bouquets and American flags.
"It's so sad," said 38-year-old Michael Kirk from Shawnee, who was with Langford.
Said Langford, "It's too close to home."
The shooting occurred about 11:15 a.m. Friday in a secured parking area outside the Wyandotte County Correctional and Court Services building.
Kansas City, Kan., police continue to investigate the shooting but have said that an inmate may have gotten one of the deputies' guns and began shooting.
Rohrer died Friday and King died from her injuries shortly after midnight on Saturday.
On Sunday, Kansas City, Kan., police announced funeral arrangements for the deputies.
A visitation for King is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Jack Reardon Civic Center, 500 Minnesota Ave., in Kansas City, Kan.
The next day, on Thursday, a joint funeral for the deputies is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at Children's Mercy Park, 1 Sporting Way, in Kansas City, Kan.
The shooting of the deputies came two years after the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department lost two members of the force in one year: Det. Brad Lancaster and Capt. Robert Melton were both killed in the line of duty in 2016.
This story was originally published June 17, 2018 at 10:02 PM with the headline "'Hungering for goodness and justice': Mourners gather in KCK to honor slain deputies."