The officer killed in the Planned Parenthood shooting was a champion figure skater
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Garrett Swasey, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs police officer who died Friday after responding to a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic, had also been a champion figure skater, a university spokesman told The Denver Post.
Swasey, 44, and his partner won the junior dance competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1992, according to a Baltimore Sun article from that time. He had moved to Colorado Springs from Melrose, Massachusetts, to train in the 1980s, The Boston Globe reports.
A six-year veteran at the campus police department, Swasey also served as a co-pastor of a reformed Protestant church. He was married with two children.
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"He was a great dad," David Swasey, the officer's father, told The Globe. "I mean, a super dad. Everybody in the police department loved him. Anybody who ever met him loved him. He was a great guy, a great person."
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
