![\"Chelsea](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/chelsea.jpg\")
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Many Baylor fans remember Chelsea Whitaker<\/a>, BA ’05, as the gutsy point guard for the 2005 Lady Bears team<\/a> that won the program’s first national championship. After playing overseas for a couple of years, today Whitaker is\u00a0a detective and a nine-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department (DPD) — one of the many officers who responded to the city’s tragic July 7 shooting.<\/p>\n As events unfolded following the attack that eventually\u00a0claimed the lives of five Dallas officers, Whitaker was called downtown to search for snipers, doing her job on little sleep — all while still processing the loss of her colleagues. Stationed atop a hotel, Whitaker spent the night searching for snipers (despite having begun\u00a0her day at 4:30 a.m.) while dealing with\u00a0the emotions she felt from knowing many of her colleagues had been shot.<\/p>\n \u201cI am proud of all of the officers who came out of the woods to assist last night,\u201d Whitaker later wrote on Facebook. \u201cGod be with the families of those officers killed last night… Sometimes things just don\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n [MORE: Read Whitaker’s “reflection from the front line”<\/a>\u00a0|| Hear her conversation\u00a0with 1660 ESPN Radio<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Although she did not initially intend to become a police officer, Whitaker says lessons learned while a Baylor student-athlete stay with her in her job. Following her basketball career, she followed\u00a0her father (a retired Dallas firefighter), mother (a juvenile probation officer) and brother (a firefighter)<\/a>\u00a0into\u00a0a career serving the people of Dallas. She’s also attending law school in her spare time, and envisions a possible future career as an attorney.<\/p>\n