Day of remembrance — ‘an extraordinary life’
Friends, colleagues honor slain Sacramento officer
Near the end of the two-hour funeral service, a video showing photos of slain Sacramento police Officer Tara O’Sullivan as a little girl making silly faces, bubbly teenager and vibrant young adult poignantly illustrated for the gathering of family, friends and hundreds of law enforcement officers how tragically early her life was cut short.
“No one ever asked, ‘ Was Tara here?’ ” her godfather, Gary Roush, told the 1,000 people who packed the Bayside Adventure Church in Roseville on Thursday morning. “She lived an extraordinary life.”
Roush described his goddaughter, who grew up in the East Bay, as tough but also warm and funny. “She was marble wrapped in velvet.”
O’Sullivan’s “quiet confidence” stood out more than a decade ago, Martinez police Sgt. Fred Ferrer told the gathering, recalling when he met the teenager who had enrolled in the youth Explorers program for the Martinez and Pleasant Hill police departments.
She carried that same confidence throughout her life, which ended last week at the age of 26 when a gunman fatally shot her during a domestic-disturbance call in northern Sacramento, Ferrer said.
O’Sullivan, who was born in Walnut Creek, knew she wanted to be a police officer from a young age, Roush said as he delivered an emotional eulogy. He shared his memories of her as a girl “before she donned the uniform,” describing her as “one of the rare people who devoured life.”
O’Sullivan played soccer at College Park High School in Pleasant Hill. After graduating in 2011, she went on to Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, then to Sacramento City College and finally to Cal State Sacramento.
She fiercely loved her family, Roush said, and she had an “intense affection” for dogs.
O’Sullivan’s exuberance showed in anecdotes that Shiloh Baptist Church pastor Anthony Sadler shared on behalf of her family. He said O’Sullivan’s mother, Kelley, used three adjectives to describe her daughter: “brave, beautiful and bossy.”
Ferrer said O’Sullivan had a way of being assertive and challenging without being “cocky.” She was inquisitive and wanted to understand, he said. Like the time when as a teenager on a ride-along she insisted that he explain why they weren’t towing a car after a drug bust and didn’t hesitate to tell him she thought they were wrong not to.
From early on, her dedication to policing was obvious, her colleagues agreed.
At least one of her trainers at the police academy called her the best trainee he’s ever had, according to Brent Kaneyuki, a Sacramento police sergeant. He described O’Sullivan as an exceptional athlete who set a new record for the department’s plank-holding portion of the physical fitness testing and touted her “unique ability to relate and communicate with all people in the community.”
Kaneyuki related a story about an assignment that required trainees to write an autobiography and describe what they like most about police work. While many simply wrote one or two roles, Kaneyuki pointed out, “Tara had her entire Sacramento PD career planned out,” from being a K-9 officer to being on the SWAT team and serving as a mounted officer.
Sacramento pol ice Chief Daniel Hahn said O’Sullivan stood out as soon as he met her when she was a student at Cal State Sacramento and said she wanted to be a police officer.
“Her godfather said, ‘ You always know when Tara was in the room,’ ” Hahn said, adding, “I’d say that’s accurate.”
And while the service focused on O’Sullivan’s accomplishments, her passion for life and the many lives she touched, comments about what her loss meant to her colleagues and family were particularly poignant.
According to police, O’Sullivan was partnered with a training officer when she was shot just before 6 p.m. June 19, hours after other officers had responded to a call regarding a disturbance between a man and a woman. O’Sullivan and her partner went to a residence on the 200 block of Redwood Avenue to stand by while the woman gathered some belongings from a residence. Shortly after 6 p.m., police on the scene reported shots had been fired, and an officer — O’Sullivan — was struck by gunfire. She died later at UC Davis Medical Center.
“We lost an amazing person,” Hahn said at the service. “Tara’s partners fought with everything they had against evil.”
Turning toward her family, he said, “The debt our department and community owe you can never be repaid.”
Roush shared with the gathering the things that now won’t happen: Tara won’t visit him and his husband later this year, she won’t be the maid of honor at her sister’s wedding, and she won’t watch her brother get married.
“That won’t happen,” Roush said solemnly after describing each plan. Still, he would try to “remember the bright light that was my sweet goddaughter.”
And in comments throughout the service, her colleagues thanked her for her service and repeated words they seemed to know would be most comforting to O’Sullivan, the dedicated police officer committed to protecting her community. “We’ll take it from here.”