As soon as she walked into the hospital that morning, she knew.
People were crying. People who saw death every day, doctors and nurses and law officers, were crying.
“When I had to walk down that long hallway,” Heather Brownlee said about Tuesday morning. “I still had hope that maybe he was in surgery. But down deep, I knew.”
Her husband, Sam Brownlee, died that day when he was shot by 20-year-old gang member Rueben Reyes following a high-speed car chase from Fort Morgan. Reyes was killed by police officers after he shot Brownlee with the deputy’s own gun.
Heather knew there was a car chase that morning. She tried to text Sam and didn’t get a return message.
“When I heard something had happened, I tried to call (Weld County Sheriff’s Office Cmdr.) Bill Spalding. He asked where I was and said someone was coming to get me. I knew then that it was bad.”
Sam and Heather met at a New Year’s Eve party and later, he asked her out.
“He told me that when he saw me, it was like someone hit him in the back of the head,” Heather said from their home Friday. “He told me every day that I was beautiful.”
They were married in June 2009, and they shared families. Heather has two teenage children: Tyler, 19, and Madison, 13. Sam also had two sons. She said Sam always wanted to be a cop, since he was little boy. He knew there was some danger involved, but it was part of the job.
Last Saturday, Sam told Heather he had a bad feeling of something coming.
“I asked him if he was trying to give me a heart attack with what he said. I guess it turned out to be a premonition.”
Heather’s son, Tyler, leaves for the Air Force next month, and Madison is in the eighth grade. Tyler put up the Christmas decorations at the house earlier this year because the family was planning to celebrate the holiday before he left for basic training.
Sitting on the couch with her kids, Heather smiled as she looked through the photos on their laptop. Their wedding was there, and family gatherings and birthdays. They talk of jokes and family adventures and good times.
Sam spent his five years at the Sheriff’s Office helping others. Sheriff John Cooke earlier said Sam won the department’s life-saving award when he gave CPR to an elderly woman; he was among the first to arrive to help the families caught in the Windsor tornado in 2008; just two days before his death, he ran into a burning building to make certain no one was inside.
When asked about the man who shot her husband, Heather said she can’t talk about him.
“It’s not my place to be angry,” she said. “People know that your actions will define who you are.”
Among the memories she will keep are the times she rode with her husband as an official ride-along visitor while he was on duty. Each morning he’d also make coffee for her.
A memorial service will be held for Sam at 10 a.m. Monday at the University of Northern Colorado’s Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion.
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter will speak at the memorial, as will Sheriff Cooke and some of the Brownlees’ friends and family. There will be a procession — led by the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club — to Linn Grove Cemetery, where the family will have a private graveside service.
