Five candles were lit during the prayer vigil Friday evening at Christ United Methodist Church to remember the five officers in Dallas that were killed Thursday in a shooting. 

Warren County Sheriff’s Office telecommunicator Casey Franks had the idea to put a prayer vigil together at the church to pray over the families involved nationwide that are being targeted just because they are police officers. 

“I thank those people that’s taken the time out of their night to come here and pray for the people of Dallas, the people of Baton Rouge, St. Paul, St. Louis now and Tennessee, around the world where officers are being targeted,” Franks said. “But I also definitely pray for those unfortunate souls that have also been taken at the hands of officers.”

The vigil comes in the wake of a shooting in Dallas that ended with five officers killed and 12 officers shot overall. The shooting began Thursday evening while hundreds of people were gathered to protest the killings in Baton Rouge, La., and suburban St. Paul, Minn., of two black men by police.

“We have got to get to a place where we stop letting our emotions get carried away, and we have to stop complaining and griping about problems. We have to sit down as professionals all across the board and talk about our problems and figure out how we’re going to fix it,” said Bowling Green Police Department Detective Jason Franks.

Franks said he was devastated when he found out about the shootings in Dallas and that with everything going on, prayer helps. 

BGPD Officer Colton Billhartz said he felt sadness for the families of the officers who lost their lives. He said he hopes to help people understand that it’s not all about ethnicity or religious groups or anything like that, it’s just about good community policing. 

“Just showing the community and the people that we protect and serve every day that we’re here for them and we’re not here to hurt them, we’re not here to do anything else like that,” Billhartz said. “We respond to their calls. They call us for help and we go and do what we can to help them.”

Friday brought on more attacks against police, including a Georgia man who authorities said called 911 to report a break-in, then ambushed the officer who came to investigate. The incident sparked a shootout in which both the officer and suspect were wounded but expected to survive.

In St. Louis, a motorist shot an officer at least once as the officer walked back to his car during a traffic stop, police said. The officer was hospitalized in critical condition. In Bristol, Tenn., a man is accused of shooting Thursday at passing cars and police on a highway, killing one person and wounding three others, including a police officer.

“It’s heartbreaking, it’s absolutely heartbreaking. It so hard to make sense of it,” said Patty Wintuska, Christ UMC children’s director. “There’s no better place to be than in prayer when that happens.”

— Follow faith/general assignments reporter Simone C. Payne on Twitter @_SimonePayne or visit bgdailynews.com.