PALMDALE — Tania Owen and Vickie Speed have a story to tell. The local first-time authors wrote a book, “After the Badge,” to share it.
Owen, a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detective, met Speed 10 days before Owen’s husband, Sgt. Steve Owen, was shot and killed execution-style on Oct. 5, 2016, in the line of duty when he answered a burglary in progress call. They met at a fundraiser for Vickie’s husband, Detective Mitch Speed, who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Mitch Speed died nearly two years later on July 7, 2018.
Following the deaths of their husbands the two women joined forces to honor Steve and Mitch’s legacies and to provide wisdom and encouragement to other law enforcement and first responder families.
“My husband worked with Steve and when Steve was murdered … because we’re women of faith, God opened the door for our families to come together,” Speed said. “Mitch had been off work with cancer at the time, and he really took Tania and her family under his wings.”
She added the relationship was more with her husband.
The relationship continued to grow over the next couple of years.
“Unbeknownst to me, my husband had asked Tania to please look out for me. Obviously at this point he knew he was going to pass,” Speed said.
Owen invited Speed to a National Police Week event in May 2019. They bonded over a week together in the nation’s capital.
“It changed our relationship and it created a bond like we had known each other our whole lives,” Speed said.
They shared their testimonies about losing their husbands, being married to law enforcement officers and Owen as a law enforcement officer herself, and how they found hope for the future through their shared faith in God. Soon enough, they were asked to share their stories with others. One of their first speaking engagements came in January 2019 for Help for Heroes, before an auditorium of more than 500 people.
Although they continue to book speaking engagements, Owen and Speed decided the best way to share their story with a larger audience was to write a book, “After the Badge.”
“God put all of this together from our publisher, to our writer, to just bringing all the right people into our life,” Speed said.
“After the Badge” was released in March.
“It’s a testimony of our lives and to our husbands. It’s been an incredible journey. We do a lot o public speaking and we also share our book,” Speed said.
Speed isn’t the first author in her family. Her late husband wrote a book, “Mitch Speed: The Man Behind the Badge,” which was originally published in 2017. They re-released the book in March with additional content to coincide with the publication of their book.
“We re-dedicated this book to Mitch and his life and his legacy,” Speed said. “There’s been a lot to this. It’s really been incredible and obviously allowed us the opportunity to help other people.”
Asked how they wrote the book during a global pandemic, Speed and Owen sat down with a friend at his studio and recorded a sort of sit-down interview. They also spent a lot of time writing their own stories. Their publisher helped polish the draft. They then spent about eight or nine months working on multiple drafts before they completed it.
Writing the book was a challenge.
“It was very emotional and very painful and there were a lot of tears because we had to relive our lives and especially for Tania having to relive Oct. 5 (2016),” Speed said. “We felt that it was something that really needed to be done.”
“It goes to show you the devastation that happens when someone is murdered,” Owen said. “It’s not just the day of their murder. The murderer leaves a trail of devastation, really, when it comes to the family to have to relive this because it was such a public thing that occurred. It’s always painful. They say time will heal all wounds. You know, time does help but sometimes it feels like it just happened yesterday.”
Asked what she hoped people would get out of the book, Owen replied hope.
“There’s always hope,” she said. “Sometimes it feels like there isn’t; sometimes you feel like quitting; sometimes you feel like everyone and everything is against you. But, you know, really it’s not, God tells us clearly that he is hope and that he will never give us more than he can handle, and that he will never forsake us or leave us. Sometimes you just have to endure.”
Owen and Speed will appear from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday for a book signing and meet and greet at Barnes & Noble, 39228 10th St. West, Palmdale.
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United in grief and faith: Owen, Speed write book - Antelope Valley Press
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