There was a remarkable funeral service Wednesday in Blair, Nebraska, near Omaha, for a 17-year-old girl who was killed by police officers in Oklahoma last month. The service for Farrah Rauch included encouraging words from the police chief in the town where she died.
It was a message of forgiveness at Blair’s Christ Lutheran Church, where the high school student was remembered by friends and family. Rauch, a junior at Blair High School, was killed in a shoot-out with police in Muskogee, Oklahoma February 28th after a chase involving a stolen vehicle. Rauch’s 17-year-old boyfriend, also a Blair High School student, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Rauch’s father, Steven, invited Muskogee Police Chief Johnny Teehee to speak at the service.
Blair High School student Farrah Rauch. (Photo courtesy of Rauch family)
“You don’t have the family of the victim of an officer-involved shooting, one that hardly even reaches out to the law enforcement agencies, but to reach out and invite them to the service and say, we forgive you. I’m sorry that my daughter put you in this position to have to do what you did. I forgive you,” Teehee said.
The four officers involved in the shooting were also invited, but said they weren’t ready to attend the service. TeeHee told mourners he plans to continue his message of forgiveness and healing.
“I’m going to carry this message of forgiveness for Farrah and I’m going to use that,” Teehee said. “That’s going to be the title of a message I’m going to carry from the time I walk out this door, whether I’m talking to my police officers, whether I’m talking to my football team, whether I’m talking to youth at church, at church camps, I’m going to use that.”
Farrah Rauch and her boyfriend had run away from her home in Blair and traveled to Florida and Arkansas before the shoot-out in Oklahoma.