There's a shared pain among a small group of people that Wendy Viers hopes stops growing.
"We thought he was invincible. We thought he was superman," she said of her late brother. "We did not think anything could take him down. To this day I think - we knew the water, we spent summers on the Missouri River. To this day, I'm just like gosh Fred."
In the summer of 2011, her brother Missouri Trooper Frederick Guthrie Jr. and his partner, Reed, died in the line of duty after flood waters swept them away.
"Anniversaries before used to be celebrated," said Viers. "Anniversaries were celebrated as far as this is how much time we were together. Now it's anniversaries of how much we are apart."
After Guthrie’s death, Viers joined Concerns of Police Survivors, or C.O.P.S., an organization that helps families, friends and co-workers grieve after an officer's end of watch.
"I wonder what kind of world we live in now," she said. "I don't understand people. Not caring for life. Not realizing police officers have families. They have parents. These are sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and dads and moms."
And while her brother's death was an accident, she says too often officer deaths and even injuries are not.
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Nationwide, 32 law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty in just the first three months of this year.
"I wish we would pray this strong for officers just like we are doing now. If we could do this all the time, we would live in a world where maybe we would see less chaos, maybe we would see less hate, maybe we would see less division."
