Superman actor Christopher Reeve once said “a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

We’ve seen few individuals who fit that description better than Sampson County Sheriff’s Deputy Caitlin Emanuel.

Last week, day after day, hour after hour, Emanuel sat in a courtroom just feet away from the man accused of shooting her and presumably leaving her for dead, lying bleeding on the side of a dark, country road back in July 2022.

She sat there stoically, bravely, listening to her own voice screaming in pain, begging for help as audio of a nightmare reality played in the Sampson County courtroom where her alleged assailant, Michael Walthall Jr., was on trial for assaulting her with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, among other charges.

Emanuel testified, too, looking her alleged assailant in the eye as she identified him as the man responsible for the horrendous events that led to her being shot in the leg and heel, 12 seconds of horror that, she said, she thought about every day when she awakened and every night before going to bed.

She was polite but emphatic as a defense attorney tried to punch holes in her account of the events that led to her shooting, trying to convince a jury that his client really didn’t intend to kill her.

While there were undeniable tears and tense moments as the worst night of her life was replayed over and over again in that courtroom, Emanuel endured the overwhelming obstacles with a grace and courage that was exemplary in every way.

Even when the jury, after several hours of deliberation, returned, unable to fulfill their charge, deadlocked 11-1 on the three most serious of five charges, she maintained her composure. She showed that same strength that had somehow gotten her through the shooting, the trauma of surgeries, interviews and the decision to give up her job as a road deputy for an administrative position with the Sheriff’s Department.

Not once did we see a chink in her armor. There were times when she was the vulnerable 27-year-old who’d been victim to a serious assault and there were times she was the brave deputy taking on a much larger man on a dark Sampson County highway, a man who covered her “entire face” with his “gi-normous” hand, wrestled her to the ground, took her mic and radio and thrust his knee into her so hard she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

But more than anything she was a hero, exemplary in the face of adversity, tackling the obstacles she was forced to face head-on. She was, and remains, a hero, we believe, in the purest form of the word.

Time after time on this page we have sang the praises of law enforcement officers, touting them for the bravery they show every day they get up and go to work, unsure what their day will bring and if they will ever return home. They run into the face of danger while the rest of us run the other way. They, as Sampson County District Attorney Robert Thigpen said this week, answer the call, a call to serve us, as citizens of Sampson County.

Emanuel is among them. She does the uniform proud in every way; she adds a little more shine to the Sheriff’s Department and she sets a tone for us all, a tone of facing the very worst of our circumstances with grace and strength.

We are sorry the book didn’t close on this awful part of her life, but the Caitlin Emanuel we witnessed last week will persevere just like the hero we know her to be.