Joshua C. Shelton, Sr., Chicago Police Department’s youngest faith-based liaison brings compassion and grace to tough job through seminary training

Officer Joshua Shelton, 33, remembers the time he saw his first homicide victim. It was a young, black male who had been shot and killed and left dying on his feet in the vestibule of his apartment building, while his family, including a small child, was just upstairs. “[That] was something I couldn’t get out of my head for a long time,” Shelton recalled. “This man had died standing up, and his family was just upstairs. We had the fire department escort them out of the building using a ladder through a window. We couldn’t let them see him like that, or see the blood, or the crime scene. For a long time, I couldn’t get this victim out of my mind. I had to pray about it constantly.”

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• April 25, 2018