With the proliferation of guns on the streets and the continuing breakdown of civil accord, it's amazing police officers aren't hurt more often. And yet there's still a painful, disbelieving shock when an officer in your own town is killed in the line of duty. It is worse yet that Officer Emily Morgenroth was so young. I have met many of our town's finest, but I did not know Morgenroth, who died in an alcohol-related collision Friday at age 26. And yet there is a profound respect in the air when those who knew her speak her name.
Respect begets respect.
She loved people. Morgenroth's friends and colleagues at the William J. Kinney police substation in North Sacramento were too broken up to share their thoughts Monday, but Lt. Tom Sweeney said the city has lost a gem. Recently, for example, she shooed a colleague home when an arrest at the end of his shift meant he'd do overtime handling the booking. She did it for him.