COLDSPRING, Texas — At the San Jacinto County courthouse, Dee Dee Adams was used to looking outside her office and seeing her husband's truck.
“I’m taking it day by day, sometimes minute by minute," she said.
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“He was extremely kind, to a fault kind," Adams said.
One month ago, her husband was working an extra job at PlazAmericas, the old Sharpstown Mall, when he was killed in a shooting.
“He said that’s where the worst of the worst come to shop," Adams said.
She explained her husband picked up three shifts at the mall but had never worked there previously. After completing the first two shifts, she said he knew he couldn't keep going back.
“He’s 62 years old. He said, 'That place is too dangerous, Wednesday will be my last day there,'" she said.
Sadly, it was. This week bodycam footage released by the Houston Police Department shows officers running in to confront the suspect, identified by police as 35-year-old Czyz Deonte Harrison.
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“Not only are they my heroes, they are everybody’s heroes," Adams said.
Harrison was shot by responding officers after police said he managed to grab Adams' gun and kill him, but then something strange happened after he was shot.
“He got up like nothing had happened. I felt like he had a purpose," Adams said. “I think he had planned on killing the other ones.”
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Ultimately, officers used a Tazer on him, he fell to the ground again and eventually died, too.
“People need to change the way they think about officers," Adams said. "I feel like all this negativity has emboldened people to act out."
Helping her heal is the officers you see in bodycam footage, who responded that day. They now share a bond that’s hard to put into words.
“Gives me a purpose to check on them and I’m sure it gives them a purpose to check on me," she said.
A wife who lost the love of her life, a father to three, grandfather to four, and a man who worked his way from dispatcher to detective, and finally, an environmental deputy for the county.
“In the end, he died doing what he loved and he was trying to protect somebody. What better way to go than doing what you love," Adams said.
Love that keeps her going from a man who gave her the strength to carry his legacy on in the county they both served.