DETROIT – A Detroit police officer whose partner was shot and killed last week in the line of duty spoke with Local 4 about what happened the day of the shooting and how she tried to save his life with a gunman bearing down on them.
Officer Amanda Hudgens said she and her partner, Officer Loren Courts, were working a double shift on Wednesday (July 6). The day started off normally, and they were barbecuing at the station when they received a call for shots fired around 7:40 p.m.
On the way to the scene at Joy Road and Marlowe Street, they sang along to a song by Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby, according to Hudgens. But once they got close, the radio was shut off.
“We pull in,” Hudgens said. “I remember hearing the gunshots, seeing the muzzle flash, feeling the glass break, and seeing him get out of the car as I’m getting out of the car.”
Click here for much more from Local 4′s interview with Hudgens.
They ran from the car together, but then, Hudgens noticed that her partner was injured.
“I see him holding his neck, and then he collapsed, and I just -- I screamed a horrific scream,” she said. “I couldn’t -- the east side heard me. Everybody heard me. I know the city of Detroit heard me, and I just held him, and I held pressure.”
Detroit police Chief James White praised Hudgens for risking her own life to keep pressure on Courts’ wound while the gunman approached.
“This brazen murderer, after shooting the officer, walks out of the building and proceeds toward the officer’s vehicle,” White said. “Officer Hudgens has to make a decision. She wants to keep direct pressure -- her training -- applied to our officer’s wounds, so that he has a chance to live. Behind her is the murderer, who is walking toward her with his assault rifle. She makes the decision to give her partner a chance to live, keeping her back to the assailant. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Hudgens provided her own account of that moment.
“I remember turning around and I remember seeing the gentleman holding a Draco,” Hudgens said. “I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. I just looked at Loren, said, ‘I love you’ -- I wasn’t letting go of him, because I won’t ever let go of him, and I just held on and I turned my back. I couldn’t drag him to cover because I couldn’t let go. The only thing I could think of was to be his cover, and just hold him.”
Hudgens said she had her back to the gunman to shield Courts. The only thing on her mind was to try to save him, she said.
“I just begged him not to go,” she said. “I could feel him breathing, and then it’s slowing down, and I just started to scream, ‘Help me.’ And I feel like he was watching over me, because that’s when the other officers came, because I was bracing to get shot by a Draco in my back. We have body armor. It doesn’t protect you from a Draco. It doesn’t protect you close, so I wanted to hold on because I knew all my weight on him might help him, and then everybody started coming and we were able to get him in the car.”
Courts was placed into a squad car and rushed to a nearby hospital. Hudgens said she followed in another squad car.
“Loren and I always talked about the ‘what ifs,’ you know,” she said. “We had to have that conversation. He didn’t want anybody else to call his family. He said, ‘You don’t call my mom, because I don’t want her to worry. You call my dad.’ So that’s what I did. We had each other’s parents’ phone numbers saved in our phones, and I called his dad, and I’m so thankful he answered.”
Hudgens told Courts’ father what had happened she was while en route to the hospital. She had hoped the shooting scene wouldn’t be the last time she spoke to her partner.
“I was hoping not,” Hudgens said. “I don’t want that to be the last time I see him.”
You can watch more of the interview below.
