You can catch Adam King off the clock. You will never catch him off watch. Two moments from his years in law enforcement — one on a highway, one on a hospital gurney — show why.
A highway in Glen Rose
Around the year 2000, when Adam was living in Glen Rose, a friend came to visit and the two stopped to eat at a spot along US 67. Across the highway, Adam spotted a police officer struggling to get a combative suspect into his patrol car. He didn’t finish the thought, let alone the meal — he crossed the highway, helped the officer subdue the man, and then went back to lunch. To him, it was simply what you do.
A broken leg, and three questions
Years earlier, in the early 1990s, Adam was a field training officer with the Cleburne Police Department when a stop on a suspected stolen vehicle turned into a foot chase. He caught the suspect — a teenager — but broke his leg badly in the process and was taken to the hospital in Fort Worth. A lifelong friend, listed as his emergency contact, was among the first to reach him. Hurt as he was, Adam’s first words were three questions, in this order: Was the officer he was training all right? Was the young man he had apprehended all right? Had they caught the second suspect?
Himself, last
Notice who was nowhere in those three questions: himself. Flat on his back with a broken leg, Adam’s mind went first to the officer he was responsible for, then to the teenager he had just chased down, then to the job. That instinct — everyone else first — didn’t come with the sheriff’s office. He carried it in long before he ever ran for it.
“Even though he was hurting, he was thinking of others.” — JL, lifelong friend of Adam King
This account was shared by JL, who has known Adam King for most of his life.