GROESBECK, TX — As a first responder, whether full time or volunteer, there’s always a feeling of knowing you could be walking out of your home for the last time as you report for duty.
That was the case just a week ago Friday for DPS Trooper Chad Walker when he was fatally shot while responding to a call for help near Mexia.
“Before he could get out to help he was killed,” explained David Tingle, a retired fire and rescue first responder and also Walker’s friend.
Walker is the second first responder Tingle said he had to bury, so this pain is familiar to him.
But Walker was special to him and his family.
“The first responder world lost a lot,” he said, while starting to tear up. “You may lose a chief, you may lose a captain, but to lose a Chad Walker, that’s a punch in the gut, that’s a hard hit, and that’s something that many of us are not going to get past very easily.”
He says he worked with Walker at three different accidents, one of which being his own daughters.
The duo got so close Walker even had a nickname for him, Cajun, he would say.
Tingle said he would be in awe watching Walker work the scenes and show people that even though they did something wrong, it was OK, and it did not define them.
”Chad knew they were wrong, Chad knew they wasn’t hurt, but Chad still made them feel like they were human,” he said smiling.
After spending time at Tingle’s house, he said the last message he got from Walker was that they were sure to get together soon for a beer perhaps, but until then he would see him again.
”And at this point, now that he's gone, I want to revert I will see you again,” he said. “Whenever I get up there with you. ”
Now, he wants Governor Abbott to listen to Walker's stories and implement change by signing legislation making it mandatory for officers' vehicles to have bulletproof glass.
”They're going to care what that governor says,” he said sternly. “They're gonna care what his pen says. And he can fix all this with the stroke of an ink pen.”
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