By Anne Berleant
DETROIT — The last photo of Detroit police officers Loren Courts and Amanda Hudgens show the partners and good friends sharing a laugh at a precinct barbecue. Shortly after, Courts, 41, took a bullet in the neck after he and Hudgens responded to a call of shots fired.
Ehmani Davis, 19, was perched in a second-story apartment on the city’s west side indiscriminately firing shots, Fox 2 reported.
“I remember seeing the muzzle flash and hearing the shots,” Hudgens said. “I yelled some cuss words and then I yelled ‘Loren!’”
The shooter rushed the partners as Courts clung to life, but Hudgens didn’t leave her partner’s side.
“I couldn’t move him, because I couldn’t let go - and he had no cover, so I made myself his cover,” Hudgens told Fox 2. “I never would have left his side.”
“I looked at him and said, ‘Please don’t leave me, I love you’ and I held on,” she continued.
Courts died at the scene. Fellow officers later shot and killed Davis.
Courts was Hudgens’ first friend in Detroit, she told Fox 2. They met in the police academy, and then partnered on the Special Operations Team for three years, celebrating their “wins” with a special handshake.
“Any time we got a gun off the street and we knew it wasn’t going to be used in wrong ways, handshake,” Hudgens said. “Every day we hugged each other when we went out and when we got back and texted each other when we got home.”
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Now Hudgens said she suffers from survivor’s guilt and is in therapy for it. “It is hard to be called a hero when he didn’t make it,” she said. “It just felt like a great day. It started off great and ended in a nightmare. I live day-by-day now. Sometimes I can’t get out of bed.”
While Hudgens is taking some time before returning to work, she said her partner’s shooting is motivating her to get back to policing.