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West Valley City • There are nights when Jenny Cordova can't get hold of her husband, a West Valley City police officer, which worries her.
In the past week, a Utah Highway Patrol trooper was hospitalized after he was shot in the back by a man who later turned the gun on himself. In Illinois and Texas, two officers were shot and killed in the past several days.
Such attacks on law enforcement spurred several Christian churches around Salt Lake Valley to hold six simultaneous rallies Friday afternoon near or in front of their cities' police stations, said Sid Casillas, pastor of Life Church in West Valley. Members of other churches gathered outside police departments in Clinton, Clearfield, Sandy, Draper and Provo.
Cordova, standing a few hundred feet from her husband's department, joined Casillas and 15 other Life Church members to hold signs in support of the police.
Cordova said that they want to show the public that they "love and support" the police, adding that she's "very, very proud" of her husband. "He's a good man."
Law enforcement has come under intense public scrutiny and criticism in recent years as deadly police shootings fueled controversy about officers' use of force. In West Valley, Danielle Willard's death in 2012 sparked a protest at the same city hall that the Life Church members gathered in front of. A judge later dismissed a manslaughter charge against Shaun Cowley, the officer who shot her.
Scott Powell brought his two daughters to the rally, all of them dressed in a shade of blue – representative of officers' uniforms – and holding blue signs. They had also taped a thin piece of blue tape to the back of Powell's pickup truck, too, for "the thin blue line" emblematic of police support and camaraderie.
The shooting of the UHP trooper happened "just the next exit up" from where the Powell lives. Powell also lived next door to the Cordovas for years.
Beyond the rally, Powell hopes that officers on patrol see the blue light he'll have on at his house, "so that when they're driving around in their neighborhoods at night, they can see that this person cares and supports them."
Kent and Sharon Royer, a husband and wife, were neighbors of a member of law enforcement too: the former police chief of Roosevelt, Cecil Gurr. Fifteen years ago, a few years after the Royers moved to West Valley City, a suspect shot and killed Gurr.
"He was a good policeman, and a good man," Kent Royer said.
Passing motorists on Constitution Boulevard — and a TRAX train — honked their horns in support of the Royers and their congregation. A passing West Valley officer did, too.
"A lot of people seemed happy [to see us]," Royer said.
A rally with a different atmosphere is planned for Saturday afternoon. The families of people who have been shot and killed by Utah law enforcement plan to gather at Salt Lake City Hall, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and former Mayor Rocky Anderson, for a rally against police violence.
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