SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Shawn, a police dispatcher, was on the radio channel on the evening of June 19 when O’Sullivan shot and heard the jarring words “officer down.”
The death of Sacramento Police Officer Tara O’Sullivan shook even the most seasoned of people with the police department, and, now, through tragic circumstances, one of the dispatchers on the radio channel that night is finding support through a shelter dog.
"He’s really helped a lot,” Shawn said (Shawn declined to provide his last name). “He’s helped distract me. It was a hard situation to go through and Sully has really helped me through it.”
According to Sacramento Police Department, he handled the channel expertly under extreme conditions, and, in the aftermath of the events, their friends at the Front Street Animal Shelter helped dispatchers cope by bringing in some dogs to act as therapy dogs.
One of those dogs was a young Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. Soon afterward, he was adopted by Shawn and named Sullivan, after Officer O'Sullivan.
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It was never part of the of the plan for the dog or the dispatcher to meet.
Shawn wasn’t expected to be there, and Sullivan wasn’t even taken to the center on the initial run. Despite that, the two managed to connect.
“I told Bobby [Sacramento police staff] that morning ‘I don’t know if I’m even going to have time to go.’ They had already left,” said Jace Huggins, Chief Animal Control Officer for Sacramento. “This puppy wasn’t even in the list that was supposed to be going, so it felt really good to just know that things happen the way they’re supposed to happen and by accepting that you can help somebody.”
"Sully chose me," added Shawn. "It was the day after the officer shooting, I was offered the day off… [administrative] leave, because of the incident, but I decided to come to work anyway. And it just so happened that Front Street brought a few puppies in with them, and, as soon as I connected with him, I knew it was meant to be.”
Shawn said Sullivan has been a great distraction from his experience on the radio channel when O’Sullivan died. He’s shaken from that day, but Sullivan is helping him through it, providing him emotional support and even joy in the aftermath of the event.
O'Sullivan was fatally shot during a domestic disturbance call. The suspected gunman, Adel Sambrano Ramos, is due in court Monday. Sacramento police say Ramos opened fire as O'Sullivan and other officers helped an unidentified woman pack her belongings from the garage of a north Sacramento home. Police say Ramos was heavily armed and fired dozens of times at officers over an hours-long standoff.
"I think the entire scenario was all fate, from the night of the shooting," Shawn said. "I wasn't supposed to be the dispatcher, but I ended up being the dispatcher."
"The day that they brought the dogs in I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I came here. Jace [Huggins] wasn’t supposed to bring this dog, but he brought this dog. So, all of it was just fate,” he added.