Gustavo Adolfo Aybar

 

OFFICER DOWN MEMORIAL PAGE

Police Officer Gustavo Adolfo Aybar
United States | Kansas |
Olathe Police Department |
End of Watch: Sunday, January 18, 2014

First year police officer Gustavo Adolfo Aybar was killed
attempting to subdue an armed assailant during a home
break-in on East Ridgeway Drive after the owner arrived
and noticed her front door ajar, at approximately 10:37 pm.

As officers entered the premises to search and clear the scene,
the ex-husband leapt out from a second-floor bedroom closet
and attacked officers. Hurling toward law enforcement with
a double-edged hunting knife, the intruder sliced and stabbed
Captain Cameron Bryant. The assailant, who was a semi-pro
mixed-martial arts fighter, was wrestled to the ground
by officer Aybar, who suffered severe injuries
while protecting his commanding officer. 

 

The attacker was subdued and arrested by police. Both Captain
Bryant and officer Aybar were transported to a local hospital.
The Captain is recovering.

Officer Aybar passed away shortly after midnight.

Officer Aybar had served with the Olathe Police
Department for six months. He is survived by his
fiancée and their four-year-old son.

BIO

Age: 38
Tour: 6 months
Badge: Not available

INCIDENT DETAILS

Cause: Knife attack
Incident Date: Sunday, January 18, 2014
Weapon: Bowie double-edged hunting knife
Offender: In custody

END OF WATCH

 

For dying in the line of duty last night, I forgive you.
For turning your flesh over to a broken system.
For the child that crumbles now, like poorly built bridges,
you the quake and its aftershocks, I forgive you. For staying
after the first time she brandished her brokenness.
You should have left running. Heaving.

I forgive you for the unplanned pregnancy; the unplanned delight
and heartbreak of it all. And when cancer invaded B’s left eye,
for the one request you moaned as prayer.
I forgive you for losing yourself in fatherhood.
For permitting your passion and play to go abandoned:
a home laid to rubble; a community destroyed,

never rebuilt. I forgive you. For believing every bad thing
your parents told you as a child; your teachers, your country
told you as a man. For always being the right shade
of suspect when you were always light. Always enough.
Blessings are birthright for kingdom
kids. You forgot; I forgive you.

I forgive you for lacking boundaries, for offering
too much grace. For never knowing your place,
your true north. Lost, over and over again,
in a lover’s smile, their laughter
—like backroads and major highways—
sweeping, expansive. I forgive you. For craving

your mother’s cigarette scent. For despising
your father’s spaghetti and meatballs.
For not remembering the songs of trees and how wind and rain
speak a language all their own. Every snap, spatter, smack
and thump; every puff, clatter and tap; each squeal, yelp,
whistle, and whir: a riot of vocabulary and syntax.

The rocks and soil, the blurred wings of birds, the roots,
the trees themselves, the branches, the leaves:
all willing interpreters. I forgive you. For paying your
library fees through the Food for Fines program;
the cheaper donations replacing the crushing overdue balance.
I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. For wearing

the body armor and the sidearm to better provide for the family.
I forgive you. For the tremble of your hand, your lack
of technique and inability to tear into your attacker.
I forgive you. For believing you could contribute to the healing,
and for leaving on this dark and tortured Earth another fatherless,
wounded and wondrous, anxious, and angry son. I forgive you—