Police discuss deadly violence after ambush leaves 3 officers dead

FLOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- In a world where violence seems to never let up, one of the few tools we can use to try and cope are conversations.

Conversations that are uncomfortable in nature, but necessary.

They’re a necessary part of healing, if there is such a thing, as more devastating details continue to be released.

“I call them cowards. They’re ambushing us,” said Kentucky State Police Trooper Shane Goodall. “We don’t have a chance. Usually, when we you go to some of these calls, if they are a more serious call, our senses are more heightened. And we’re kind of expecting or thinking of things that could go wrong. But, these calls that we’re going to now are completely senseless acts.”

Three police officers have died, with four others injured, following what investigators call a planned attack when officers were trying to serve an emergency protection order Thursday.

A K9 officer also killed in a nearly four hour shoot-out.

For previous coverage, tap here >>>>

“It’s scary to know that now we’ve lost three, and there’s other ones that’s been shot, and there was nothing that anybody could do about it at this time,” Goodall said.

“What goes through a police officer’s mind the second they know that’s what they’re responding to?” asked WSAZ’s Shannon Litton.

“First, it’s a kick in the gut. You’re worried about who’s been injured. Is it someone you know? Whether it’s someone you know or not, it’s a fellow police officer, fellow brother, or sister,” Goodall said. “You know they’ve been injured, and your first reaction is you want to get there as quick as you can to hopefully prevent someone else from getting hurt, or them actually getting killed.”

Recruitment, becoming harder every day, with people not wanting to join the force for a number of reasons.

“Families don’t want to put their children, and have them grow up to be police officers like they used to be. That’s all I ever wanted to be, that’s a lot of all these other guys ever wanted to be in their lives was a police officer or state trooper,” Goodall said.

As we post this story, shootings of police officers are up 19 percent from this time last year, according to the National Fraternal Order of Police.

It’s something that doesn’t surprise Goodall.

“It seems like some part of society, they don’t have a conscience. They don’t care. They don’t care about the consequences they could face if they do shoot police officers. We’re just there to do our job. We’re there to help people. It’s sad to see some of the remarks that I’ve seen that people put out there, ‘Well they knew what they were getting into when they went to that job.’ We don’t expect to die going into our job. We expect to go out there and help people,” Goodall told WSAZ.

“Those simple warrants that police are trying to serve, does that mean you guys are going to have to be forced to respond in larger numbers?” asked WSAZ’s Shannon Litton.

“We don’t have larger numbers, unfortunately. There are certain policies that we do have to adhere by before we serve warrants and things that we have to do that makes things a little bit safer for us,” Goodall said. “We have to serve the warrants, and the only way we can get those warrants served is we go find them.”

Keep checking the WSAZ App for the latest information.

Copyright 2022 WSAZ. All rights reserved.