An Oklahoma police chief felt compelled to do what he could to help the family of a Blair teenager heal after she was killed by his officers.
Muskogee Police Chief Johnny Teehee spoke during Wednesday's funeral for 17-year-old Farrah Rauch at Christ Lutheran Church in Blair. Rauch and her boyfriend, Joseph Dugan, also of Blair, died following an officer-involved shooting Feb. 28 in Muskogee. Dugan took his own life.
Teehee's presence at the service was described by Pastor Mark Degner as “highly unusual and unprecedented” after Farrah's father, Steven, showed forgiveness to Teehee and the four officers involved in the shooting.
Teehee was also caught off guard by the invitation.
“This never happens,” he said. “You don't have the family of the victim of an officer-involved shooting ... reach out and invite them to the service and say, 'We forgive you. I'm sorry that my daughter put you in this position to have to do what you did, I forgive you.'
“When he's willing to do that, then I have an obligation to be here,” Teehee added.
The four officers declined the invitation, Teehee said, as they were still dealing with the pain from the incident.
“They just didn't think they were quite ready to do that,” he said.
But one officer did speak with Teehee before he left for Blair.
“He said, 'Chief, I'm not going to be able to do this, but will you let that family know that I love them and we hold no ill will,” Teehee said.
Forgiveness was the central theme for the service. It's a message that Teehee said he will carry with him for the rest of his life.
“I'm going to carry this message 'forgiveness for Farrah' and I'm going to use that. That's going to be the title of a message I'm going to carry from the time I walk out this door, whether I'm talking to my police officers, whether 'm talking to my football team, whether I'm talking to youth at church camps, I'm going to use that,” he said.
During the service, Teehee admitted to holding a grudge for more than 20 years. But through his experience with Farrah and the Rauch family, he plans to put that behind him.
“I hate that I was so self centered to the point that I held onto that and it took this young lady to get that out of me,” he said. “But if that's what we can take home today from that, where we have some type of message that Farrah leaves with us from now on, then I think we've accomplished something today.”
