COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- For Jonika Winkler, February was supposed to be the happiest time in her life. She was about to give birth to a second child, one that doctors were calling a miracle baby.
"There actually was a lot going on," Winkler said. "I was, yes, I was in labor with my daughter. I was laboring at home before going to the hospital, and we actually had Quest at our house, working on our computer because we wanted to be able to e-mail everybody when our baby was born and whatnot, and my family had been checking up on me all day, all morning from like 6 a.m. on, and the phone rings. I automatically tell my husband 'tell them I'm ok, I'm ok,' and my husband was on the phone for awhile. He came back in and he said 'it's your brother Jeff, you know,' and I said 'oh tell him I'm fine' and he goes 'no, no, no, you need to talk to him.'"
That phone call changed Winkler's life forever.
"I'll never forget. I was standing," Winkler said. "I took the phone. I walked out of our room across the hall into our son's room and Jeff telling me that Jared had been, I think he used the term Jared had been in an accident, and I said what happened, and he said 'he's been shot.'"
Winkler's brother, Detective Jared Jensen, was a police officer with the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Jensen was attempting to arrest Jereme Lamberth, who was wanted for attempted murder, near a bus stop at Hancock and Costilla.
"My first reaction was, and I'm kicking myself over and over, but my first reaction was 'is he dead'? Because you don't want to know that," Winkler said. "It's like 'tell me he's not, let's get this question over with. Tell me he's okay,' and Jeff just says it doesn't look good. And so I talked to Jeff for a little bit on the phone and you know, like I said, I was in labor so I'm holding my belly and praying and hoping it's all gonna be okay, it's all gonna be one big misunderstanding."
Winkler said she and her husband lived in Fountain at the time and rushed to Memorial Hospital after dropping their 22-month old-son off at a friend's house.
"Jared had passed before I had gotten there, which is probably one of the hardest things for me," Winkler said.
Winkler said she had no time to grieve and tried to focus on her baby girl.
"Being pregnant and being in labor put me in a different feeling than everybody else because I had to, I had to stay strong," Winkler said. "I mean everybody stayed strong. My family, I saw strength out of my family that I never knew was there, but I had to stay strong. I had a baby that was about to come out. I didn't want her coming out on the 22nd. I wanted to hold it one more day if I could."
Winkler did hold it one more day and gave birth to a happy and healthy baby girl named Faith on Feb. 23.
"She was born the next day," Winkler said. "We went to the hospital around 7 the next morning. I was pretty much up the whole night, that's one thing I didn't do was I didn't sleep, both for my stomach was hurting and my heart was hurting."
Winkler said Faith was born almost exactly 24 hours after Jensen was killed.
"We decided at that point, we had already had the name Faith picked out ironically, and so we decided at that point that her middle name was gonna be JS for Jared Scott," Winkler said.
Winkler said Faith's birth was just the blessing her family needed at one of the lowest points of their lives.
"My daughter she just came out a healthy, happy little baby girl," Winkler said. "You know, after everything she had been through in the past 24 hours, she was beautiful, and I think ironically it came at a good time. My family needed, I needed, but I think my family needed too a blessing. We lost a wonderful person. A wonderful brother, uncle, son, friend, husband, and I think some of us needed that little miracle, and Faith was a miracle because of previous stuff in my pregnancy with her and so many of us just filled up with joy with Faith."
But unfortunately the joy was short lived. Winkler still had to deal with the loss of her brother, while trying to deal with being a new mom.
"It was hard after,' Winkler said. "It was hard after to go from you have a baby and you think you're gonna be in the hospital 24-48 hours and you're gonna come home and you're gonna enjoy that first week. I didn't get that with Faith."
Winkler said the next six months after Faith's birth were extremely difficult.
"I put one foot in front of the other, and I didn't have time to grieve," Winkler said. "It just wasn't a choice. It wasn't a choice I was given, and I held onto my faith and I held onto every memory about Jared."
But Winkler couldn't escape the pain forever.
"Once my kids got a little bit older, then my grieving process started," Winkler said. "Because then you know when my daughter could walk and my son was four then, and different things were going on I could start to focus on it, so it was harder I think for me, and by that point most of my family's already moved on, and here I am as if it just happened, and I think you just kind of for Jared's sake just put one foot in front of another because none of us know what Jared would want. We try to hope and pray. You know faith got a lot of us through it, as in you know The Lord and everything and you know we held onto that and just try to stay strong and try to remember you know as much as what we can, and just literally telling yourself 'Ok it's a new day. We're gonna put one foot in front of the other and we're gonna take some steps back.'"
Five years later Winkler said it's still hard to deal with the loss of her brother.
"Some days I'm completely happy, and some days I could punch a wall as if it just happened," Winkler said. "You know you just have that anger, and so I think you just continue through life with the different stages of grievance, and some days are great, some days are not. You never learn to move on. Move on is a term that anyone whose lost a loved one, it just doesn't exists. You learn to move forward."
She said she and her family are focused on making sure Jared is never forgotten.
"You know people ask me how many brothers I have, I still say four," Winkler said. "They ask me where they live, well let's see I have one in Denver, one out here, one in Minnesota and one up in heaven. I mean it's just you never want to forget somebody that you love, you know or somebody who meant a part of you. He was a part of my heart, a part that I have a void in, that void will never be filled again."
Winkler said Jared has always been and will always be her hero.
"He was just a wonderful brother," Winkler said. "I mean I look at pictures of him and I mean the smile, you see his smile and you can't help but smile. You could be sad and you look at his smile and you smile. I mean he was just a wonderful brother, he still is a wonderful brother, because I still feel him on days that I'm at my wits end where I just feel like bawling. And I'm not a person to, I've always, because I had to hold everything in after having Faith and having another young son I just learned to always push the crying away, you know it didn't come out and so and I always feel that that's a part of Jared. I feel like he's giving me a hug every time I need one. That's kind of the way it was when I was growing up, when I was at my worst or I got injured or something happened, he was the one that was looking out for me. Even into adulthood he was just always looking out for me, never asked questions, never judged. He wasn't the judging type. He just accepted you for who you were and that was that."
Winkler said it means a lot to her that Jared is considered a hero by a lot of other people too.
"Knowing that he protected so many people and not just on Feb. 22, 2006, but every day of his career, he protected people. He protected all of us. You know when he was a patrolman, he stopped speeders, he stopped drunk drivers, you know he stopped people that could hurt other people, and that's what our police officers do for us, they protect us and I'm honored that Jared was one of them and I'm honored that he's my brother," Winkler said.
Winkler doesn't want Jared to only be remembered as a police officer who made the ultimate sacrifice, but as the loving and dedicated person he was to his family and to his job.
"I want people to know the Jared that his family all knew, not just the policeman. The fun loving guy who was wonderful in so many ways," Winkler said. "I want people to remember him, not just the bad thing, not just the fact that you know somebody took his life but to remember him and what he stood for. That he was a wonderful police officer, a wonderful brother, friend, and uncle, a husband, a son, you know everything. It's hard to think of Feb. 22, and not think of you know the phone calls, the sirens, the hospital, everything, the funeral, it's hard not to think of that. But on this one I'd like people to think about who he was and the hero that he was and try to keep that as the focus and not the bad and to pay tribute to him and to honor him."
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKXRM