opinion

Officer Kim gave his life protecting ours

"Officer down."

Those are words that, no matter how calmly delivered, cut through the police scanner chatter and strike at the hearts of everyone listening.

An ordinary, dreary morning was shattered with that police call from Madisonville at about 9:30 a.m. Friday. Rescue squads and police raced to the scene, and Cincinnati Police Officer Sonny Kim was whisked to University Hospital Medical Center, but to no avail.

The Cincinnati Police Department, the Madisonville community and, most important, a family lost a brave man today, shot while responding to a call of a suspect acting erratically with a gun.

Today we remember that police officers risk their lives for us every time they respond to a call, every time they make that split-second decision whether to pull the trigger or not.

But today, in Cincinnati, isn't about the state of police/community relations nationwide or even the steep increase in gun violence in our community this year. Those are important – necessary – issues for us to deal with, and very soon.

First, however, we mourn. We mourn a man who served us as all a member of the Cincinnati Police Department for 27 years, receiving 22 commendations.

We don't know a lot about Sonny Kim yet. He was a husband and the father of three and a martial arts instructor.

What we know is that he gave his life protecting ours.

And we mourn him.