'My boys need a daddy': Wife of wounded Orlando officer asks community for prayers

WESH Orlando
ORLANDO, Fla.

The wife of an Orlando police officer who was shot and wounded earlier this week asked the community for prayers and asked her husband to keep fighting during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Kevin Valencia, who is in his late 20s, was responding to the Westwood Apartments late Sunday after a woman said her boyfriend had beaten her. As Valencia and other officers approached, there was an exchange of gunfire and Valencia was shot in the head.

Valencia was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center in critical condition and remains in intensive care. A doctor said Wednesday that he is in a coma and has a long road to recovery ahead of him.

Valencia's wife, Meghan, said that her husband is a fighter and she asked for prayers.

Sobbing as she talked about her husband, Meghan Valencia said they were childhood sweethearts and had two sons.

“He did everything he possibly could to protect everybody,” Meghan Valencia said.

Meghan Valencia described being woken up in the middle of the night by officers who told her that her husband had been shot trying to save four kids.

“My boys need a daddy, I need my husband, and this community needs a real hero,” she said.

Meghan Valencia expressed sorrow for the killing of the four children by Gary Lindsey, who holed up with the children in a 21-hour standoff that ended late Monday.

The children, ranging in age from 1 to 12, belonged to Lindsey and his girlfriend.