Slain Detroit police officer's parents: Loren Courts was a hero, family man

Rarely does Larry Courts Sr. answer calls from numbers he doesn't recognize. But on Wednesday night, he said something was telling him to pick up the phone.

On the other line, a woman was screaming hysterically. It was his son's partner on the Detroit police force.

Loren Courts, his son, had been shot on duty on the city's west side.

Related: Detroit Police Officer Loren Courts fatally shot: What we know

More: Wife of fatally shot Detroit Police Officer Loren Courts: I'm 'completely heartbroken'

Larry Courts, a retired sergeant of the Detroit Police Department, was already driving when he got the call. He saw the caravan of police vehicles speeding down Grand River Avenue toward the hospital — and he knew one of those vehicles was carrying his son.

Courts kept up with the caravan and weaved his way inside it, until he was about the third car in line. He saw officers take his son into the hospital, the bloody wound near his neck.

Doctors told him he died peacefully, that he wasn't in pain.

"He's my hero, my dude. I have so much respect for him," Courts told the Free Press at his Detroit home.

"God needed him more than we did down here — my arms are too short to box with God."

Courts was told his son was responding to a call of shots fired when he was himself shot by a suspect with a Draco, a semiautomatic, AK-style pistol.

Detroit Police Chief James White said during a news conference Thursday that the first officers who responded to the scene were "ambushed" by the gunman. Loren Courts was shot while still in his police vehicle upon arriving at the corner of Joy Road and Marlowe Street at 7:41 p.m., police said. His partner tried to save Courts by applying pressure to his wound, with her back toward the approaching gunman, while other officers shot and killed the suspect, White said.

Love and legacy

Loren Courts, 40, worked in the 2nd Precinct's special operations unit, responding to and investigating violent crimes in the city, his father said.

Courts always wanted to be a police officer, just like his father had been for nearly 32 years, mainly combating organized crime and gang activity. Wednesday's fatal shooting ended Courts' police career after five years of service with the Detroit Police Department.

But Courts' family said he was more than just a police officer. He was a hardworking and dedicated son, a father of two children, a husband, a brother. He loved movies, caring for elderly people, being a police officer and public servant.

Most of all, though, he loved his family. He loved teaching life lessons to his children. He loved bringing his parents groceries on Sundays and flashing his car lights past their home to let them know he was on the way to work. He loved talking to his four siblings every day.

"He loved the hell out of his family," Larry Courts said.

That's his legacy, Courts and his wife, Lillian Courts, agreed — loving and caring for others.

When asked how the family is coping with their loss, Lillian Courts said softly, "We're not."

'Just an all-around good guy'

On the Courts' dining room table, there were flowers, a painting of a Detroit police badge and family portrait with Loren Courts, his four siblings, and his mother.

Their family is close, "sometimes too close," Lillian Courts said. They call themselves the "L" family: There's the parents, Lillian and Larry Courts, then the siblings, Larry Jr., Loren, Leslie, Lynnette and Lance Courts.

With Loren Courts gone, "I can't wrap my mind around it," Lillian Courts said.

She's going to miss his smile, his infectious laugh, his gentle soul, she said.

"He was just an all-around good guy — I'm not just saying that because he's my son," Larry Courts Sr. said.

But "we get up, the sun will rise. We will continue on. We will make sure his kids are taken care of, and not forgotten," Courts Sr. said.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at asahouri@freepress.com or on Twitter @andreamsahouri. 

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Slain Detroit police officers parents: Loren Counts a hero, family man