Former Dallas Police Department media relations cop describes deadly ambush
DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) – Seven years ago, then Dallas police officer and department spokesperson Monica Cordova, was one of the officers tasked with relaying real time information about the deadly ambush in downtown Dallas to the public.
She left her job as an officer shortly after the shooting, but on the 7th anniversary of the attack that left five officers dead, she revisited the night and the challenge of releasing the officers names knowing two of the fallen were personal friends.
Cordova said, when they realized what had happened all hands were on deck.
She added, "My first assignment that night was to go to Parkland hospital and find out who all was injured."
She described what she found out at a scene that seemed unreal to her.
"I'm looking at familiar faces, and colleagues and they all look like they have been through a war basically. I asked… 'Who's injured?' The first two names that were given to me were actually friends of mine. People I shared time with at the academy or on patrol."
The two names she mentioned were Officers Patrick Zamarripa and Michael Krol.
Cordova had to make the names of fallen officers and friends public at the same time that the ambush and standoff with the shooter played out in downtown Dallas.
Then she had to add three more names to the list. One after another after their deaths were confirmed, Cordova announced the passing of Sgt. Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, and DART Officer Brent Thompson.
When asked about what it was like to compile a seemingly never ending list of fallen officers that night she said, "That was probably the toughest thing to have to write. I had just gotten back from the hospital, and the EOC and they were telling me now it's another one and another one. I'm trying to type this up and I had tears down my face because they were not just names. These were people we knew. These were people we worked with and loved… It's like writing it made it real."
Like so many others, it's a reality that has taken a lot of time and much pain to accept.
Zamarripa was her academy classmate.
She remembered him saying, "He meant business every time he went out but when he would smile it would brighten up a room."
Officer Krol and Cordova were great friends early in their career after an ironic first encounter on the job where they argued about how to properly fill out a police report.
"We start arguing and kept looking over to see -- can we stop now? Then we just started laughing about the whole thing."
While five officers died that night, Cordova was adamant about mentioning the 12 others who were injured trying to save those who were killed.
She said all those officers and their efforts should also never be forgotten especially, on the anniversary of the darkest night in the department's history.