Officer who was shot in the line of duty finds new calling as police chaplain

13 years ago, Detroit Police Officer Derrick Hayes wasn’t supposed to be working, but he and his wife decided they could use the money, so he went in. It was a decision that would change his life.

Hayes and his partner responded to an armed robbery. When Hayes attempted to subdue one of the suspects, he was shot--6 times.

“Thought I was paralyzed,” he told Fox 2 Detroit. “Couldn’t move my legs. But I laid there, and I looked up in the sky.”

In that moment, Hayes realized he had a different calling. If he made it, he would trade in the badge for a bible. Hayes says his survival that night was a message from God. 

“I was left here for a reason,” he said. “It wasn’t just to continually exist.”

In May, Hayes will graduate as a police chaplain. He hopes to use his new position to counsel those who go through what he went through. To show officers they can make it through a dark time. Most of all though, he says he wants to show both the police and the public that there is good in the world, even in tough times.