Fallen Sacramento officer’s family wants to honor her with police dog

After speaking at Tara O’ Sullivan’s memorial service on Thursday, Gary Roush says he has spent the last few days at his Fresno home wondering how to best honor his goddaughter, the fallen police officer killed during a domestic violence call in Sacramento.

As O’Sullivan’s godparents, Roush and his husband Mark Gresko have known her family since she was 4. The O’Sullivans sometimes visited their Fresno home, and Roush and Gresko would often visit the O’Sullivans in the Bay Area.

O’Sullivan, 26, was shot with a high-powered rifle June 19 while helping a woman gather belongings during a domestic violence call in north Sacramento.

She had only recently graduated from the police academy and was still in training, but she was living her dream as a police officer, Roush said.

Being a K-9 officer was one of her top career goals and Roush spoke about her love of dogs during the eulogy he gave on Thursday in Roseville.

“At times I had to wonder which species she loved more, people or pooches,” he said.

Roush said he and the O’Sullivan family realized her love of dogs, people and police could perfectly be captured one way.

“Ever since she was old enough to realize dogs existed, she loved dogs,” Roush said. “I just thought funding a police dog would be perfect.”

Roush is now spearheading a GoFundMe campaign hoping to reach $20,000 to purchase, train and care for a K-9 for the Sacramento Police Department. He hopes the dog will be named Tara.

O’Sullivan left behind her own dog, a pit bull named Nero.

Family memories

Roush said he still feels despair over her life cut short.

“I’m angry about the experiences unexperienced,” he said. “Tara was to come visit after she finished field training to see us, to play with our dachshunds, who she loved as if they were her own. That won’t happen.”

Roush is especially fond of a Christmas photo he came across before O’Sullivan’s death. It shows him, Gresko and the O’Sullivan siblings during Christmas about 18 years ago. O’Sullivan is holding close two stuffed toy dogs that Roush and his husband had just gifted her.

The Saturday before she was killed, he sent the photo to O’Sullivan, her brother Justin and sister Krista Horvath, and parents Kelley and Denis.

“I said, ‘Hey, I just saw this photo again, it brings back such fond memories. I love you,’ or something like that,” Roush recalled.

Just four days later, O’Sullivan was killed.

At the memorial service, Kelley told Roush that her daughter “kept those dogs until they fell apart.”

Roush hopes the campaign will honor his goddaughter and all she stood for.

“She was one of those rare people who devoured life,” he said. “She was our daughter. We expected a long life with her. She meant the world to us.”

This story was originally published July 1, 2019 at 3:26 PM with the headline "Fallen Sacramento officer’s family wants to honor her with police dog."