Detroit Officer Chris Rabior wrote a powerful post on Facebook about a shooting that left a 7-year-old boy in critical condition with a suspect, Torrey Craft, eventually turning himself in Wednesday morning.
Rabior's post was shared by the Detroit Police Department on its page. He talks about the challenges of being a police officer in Detroit and the emotions he went through when a routine night was turned upside down with a child's life and death situation, reports WJBK.
"Just prior to the end of my shift, I found myself lifting the nearly lifeless body of a 7-year-old boy from the back of our scout car and onto a stretcher for staff waiting on his arrival. I don't even know the boy's name. I don't know his mother's name. My hands should have been busy tapping away at a keyboard, writing a report about the four guns we got off the street earlier in the shift. Instead my hands were covered past my elbows in the blood of a child."
Rabior's post starts with people wondering why he would "ever want to work as a police officer in Detroit" adding that he's been assaulted before, shot at, and felt hatred directed at him due to his uniform.
His post ends with him describing why he and so many others who chose to wear the uniform do so with pride.
"He made it through surgery," Rabior wrote. "He's listed critical due to his age and the amount of blood he lost. But he's alive.
"I don't know his name, but I'll never forget his face. He's why we do what we do."