Wife of Slain Va. Officer Turns Tragedy Into Lesson

Sept. 18, 2012
The widow of a fallen Colonial Heights officer volunteered to conduct 55 presentations about the death of her husband, who was killed in a vehicle crash, speaking to more than 1,100 officers in 2011 alone.

Sept. 18--COLONIAL HEIGHTS -- Jessica Sears Younce will never forget the feeling in the pit of her stomach as she sat her three children down to tell them that their police officer father had been accidentally killed by another policeman during a high-speed pursuit.

Grief-stricken, she steeled herself against rage and resentment.

"I knew that however I chose to handle his death was how they were going to choose to handle it," she said. "I was just determined that I was not going to let anger or bad feelings take over our lives."

Six years have passed since a Chesterfield County officer slammed into Colonial Heights Police Lt. James "Jamie" Sears on his way home from a late-night workout. Sears Younce, who has since remarried, now spends countless hours criss-crossing the state and the country to share his story with law enforcement.

"I was concerned at first that people might look at me and out of pity let me come and talk to their recruits, which is not at all what I wanted," she said. "I wanted them to really take it seriously."

And they have.

Sears Younce volunteered to conduct 55 presentations and brought Jamie's story to more than 1,100 officers in 2011 alone.

Her efforts recently earned her the title of "Hometown Hero" from local law firm Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen. Last month, she received the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Law Enforcement from the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. She was nominated for the VACP award by Chesterfield Police Chief Col. Thierry Dupuis.

"I have been truly overwhelmed and humbled," she said of the accolades. "I think it helps my children see that even though their dad is gone, what he loved so much is not gone; his message has not been lost."

The work wasn't something that Sears Younce set out to do. Her partnership with Chesterfield police evolved out of a chance meeting during lunch with a friend in the Colonial Heights Police Department during the summer of 2008. A man walked up to their mutual acquaintance and when Sears Younce was introduced, the color drained out of his face. He was a driving instructor for Chesterfield police.

"He told me that he had changed the way he taught driving after Jamie died and I could see that he truly cared about what had happened to Jamie and that other officers learned from it," she said.

She recognized her ability to connect with trainees as the widow of a man who was both a crash victim and a police officer. He was one of them. She can see it in their eyes as photos of Jamie with their sons and daughter flash across the screen. They see themselves in him, and the effect sticks.

The presentation, which is done in tandem with an hour-long analysis of the chase by a Chesterfield training officer, was originally designed for county students. Once word about the class got out, Sears Younce was fielding requests from departments across the region and around the state. She credits Chesterfield with rising to meet the tragedy head on.

"They could have not talked about this, pretended it never happened and swept it under the rug," she said. "Instead they came out and talked about it and said these are the things that went wrong and this is what we can learn from it."

She was initially hesitant about partnering with the agency that was indirectly responsible for Jamie's death, but that apprehension faded almost immediately. She has refused to harbor any resentment toward the man who hit Jamie. Instead, her heart goes out to him.

"There have been times over the years where if one of the children was suffering in a particular way I would experience a flash of anger," she said. "He carries a heavy burden as well and I would have done anything then or now to relieve him of that burden, but unfortunately that's one that he alone has to bear."

She'll never know exactly how many officers she reaches because she measures her success in accidents avoided. But she knows that those talks matter. The talks that used to send her into an emotional tailspin for days. The talks that make hardened officers cry. The talks that save countless lives and rebuilt hers in the process. They tell her that those talks matter.

"I had an officer come up to me one time and he was choked up and all he could get out was, 'I will never get in my car again without thinking of your husband,'" she said. "When people say things like that to me I say, 'OK, it's worth it.'"

- K. Burnell Evans may be reached at 804-722-5155 or [email protected].

Copyright 2012 - The Progress-Index, Petersburg, Va.

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