FORT WORTH -- Thirty-eight new Fort Worth police officers took the oath Friday morning. Their proudest moment came at the darkest time for police and their loved ones.
Bagpipes ushered Academy Class 139 into the sanctuary at Christ Chapel Church. They snapped off their hats in unison for the invocation.
"Lord, we come to you this morning with a heavy heart,” the chaplain prayed.
They launch their futures just hours after so many bled so much for wearing the badge they have worked so hard to earn.
Chief Joel Fitzgerald told a large crowd to hold up the new officers.
"They're people who knew what they signed up for. But they're not signing up to be targets," Fitzgerald said. "Nor are they signing up to mistreat people."
Fitzgerald is Fort Worth’s first black police chief. He urged officers to weave themselves into community life, so they can never be seen as outsiders.
"I challenge you, each and every one of you, to help reverse this negative trend,” Chief Fitzgerald said.
As cadets they endured 1,100 hours of training over 34 weeks. They were punched, Tazed, gassed, and stressed to breaking point. Sometimes, bones did break.
It took Justin Henry four academies over seven years because he kept getting hurt. Broken leg. Torn muscles.
But he made it to the oath.
“It’s really simple,” he said. “Just to serve the public. Serve the community. There’s no greater reward than that.”
They stood with their right hands raised. "Preserve, protect and defend,” they repeated. Then, they received badges already covered with a strip of black mourning cloth.
“I have my beautiful wife who is expecting, and I have my wonderful 6-year-old son here today," Officer Henry smiled.
Friends and family swarmed him and other new officers.
Ashley Henry said the attack in Dallas does not make her more fearful for her husband.
"It's incredibly sad. It's terrifying,” she said. “But you know in this department they have each other's back."
She was a police dispatcher.
Despite sadness hanging over the ceremony, joy erupted as they celebrated hard work and new careers.
"Life must go on," the pastor told them.
And so it will for rookie officers who heard the call, and loved ones who pray they never receive the call.
Six-year-old Logan Henry took it all in. His grin nearly swallowed up beneath the brim of his dad’s Fort Worth police hat.