Lakewood Police Hero Shares Story of Survival, Struggle & Purpose

Lakewood, CO — On December 27, 2021, Ashley Ferris’ life changed forever. That was the day the Lakewood Police agent confronted and stopped a gunman who had already killed five people across Denver and Lakewood.

Ferris has previously shared details of that harrowing night — but in interviews with outlets like 9NEWS and CBS News Colorado, she also revealed a deeply personal truth she hadn’t publicly spoken about before: she was planning to end her life that very evening.

“I needed a moment that would shake me and wake me, and that's what I got,” Ferris told 9NEWS.

At the time, she was struggling behind the scenes.

“I was struggling with hypervigilance and stress, and I needed to be getting mental health help that I wasn't getting,” she said. “It was my first Christmas alone after going through divorce. I was really miserable. I was feeling very alone.”

She had picked up a lot of overtime that month — and only happened to be working that day because of it.

“I went and I parked in the spot that I always park, it was a church parking lot,” she recalled to 9NEWS. “I just remember, and I sat there and I just started a spiral and I was crying and I was texting someone saying, ‘I just can't do this anymore.’”

That person replied with the questions Ferris herself had been trained to ask in crisis situations: Are you planning on hurting yourself? Are you planning on killing yourself?

“I didn’t respond,” Ferris admitted. “I navigated around it. And the truth was I was going to kill myself. I was gonna go home that night after work and use my off-duty gun and take my own life.”

But then, the call came in.

As CBS News Colorado reported, Ferris was among the first officers to respond to the gunman near Belmar shopping center. When she confronted him, he shot her in the abdomen. From the ground — wounded but conscious — Ferris returned fire and killed the shooter.

“To see them run into a scene that they still believed to be active with an active gunman — they run in and they grab me and they save me,” she told 9NEWS. “I wasn’t gonna give up the fight for my life after that, no way.”

The experience altered the course of her life.

“That’s so sad to me that I almost wasn’t there,” Ferris reflected. “We never know when our moment's going to come and to take yourself out of the picture before you even have a chance, you just don't know down the road what's coming for you. To take yourself out of the game before you have a chance to fulfill your life's meaning — that’s a tragedy.”

Today, Ferris is no longer working on the street but continues to serve others.

“I now work for the University of Tennessee under their Institute for Public Service,” she said.

She hopes that by sharing what she went through — both physically and mentally — others will feel less alone in their own struggles.

“I can't help the community in the same way,” Ferris said. “But I can be vulnerable. Because the problem is — we're all struggling, and we're not saying it.”

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