Six years ago, Pierce County, WA Sheriff’s Deputy Kent Mundell was shot responding to a domestic violence call, succumbing to his injuries a week later. Last weekend, his daughter Kirsten got married, leaving an open chair in the front row for her fallen, and sorely missed, father. She also had a thin blue line down the back of her wedding dress to represent the law enforcement community – and it’s a community that stepped up for one of their own.
"Any wedding is a big deal, and not having my dad there was a lot harder for all of us," she admitted to a local new affiliate.
Rather than let Kirsten feel the hole losing a parent creates on her special day, fellow officers from Mundell’s area stepped in. One after another, a line of officers and detectives stepped up during what would traditionally be the father daughter dance.
“We’re sitting there dancing and then all of a sudden someone taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Can I cut in?’ and I was shocked. I didn’t know how to react, how to respond,” Kirsten said. “He said, ‘there’s a whole line of us,’ and right as he said that is when the next officer cut in and I just broke down.”
Watch for yourself below.