Syracuse officer Michael Jensen’s family talks about his life, love of work and the horrible day they lost him

Rome, N.Y. — Michelle Jensen was always worrying.

She was nervous each time her son, Michael, would start one of his shifts as a patrol officer for the Syracuse Police Department. So she would send him a short text telling him to be careful, even though he could find them annoying. A devout Catholic, she’d sometimes include a praying hands emoji in her message.

“Stay safe today handsome son,” she texted Michael at 3:08 p.m. Sunday, with red and blue heart emojis.

Her son responded with a thumbs up.

Less than six hours later, he was dead. Michael Jensen, 29, and sheriff’s Lt. Michael Hoosock, 37, were killed Sunday night in a hail of gunfire in an ambush in Salina, officials said.

Michael had a big, outgoing personality that would light up a room, plus he had a mischievous side. He also loved to be active and outdoors. Those qualities made him want to leave his desk job as an accountant to look for a different line of work.

He decided to become a police officer and in February 2022 joined the Syracuse force, a job he loved.

His parents, Michelle and Paul, and his sister, ShelliAnn, talked to syracuse.com | The Post-Standard for an hour and a half at their home in Rome about Michael — his life, his work and the day he died.

The call

Michelle, a retired elementary school teacher, had just plugged in her phone at the family’s other home in Melbourne, Florida, on Sunday night when she saw the screen light up.

It was a call from Grant Prudhomme, a Syracuse police officer and close friend of her son’s from the club hockey team at Le Moyne College.

Prudhomme, who was off-duty when told of the shootings, volunteered to make the call. He got Michelle first.

“Mike’s been shot, and I don’t know how bad it is,” Prudhomme recalled telling her. “She started to lose it on the phone. I told her I would keep her informed.”

Michelle said she quickly hung up and called her husband back in Rome. Paul, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, knows unexpected phone calls are not good when your son’s a cop.

A former state trooper who the family knew picked up Paul and sped him to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. While on the way, Paul texted with his wife and daughter. He also reached out to one of his sisters to say his son was in trouble. He asked her to pray for Michael.

At the hospital, Paul said, he found a “broken” police department. More than a hundred police officers and other first responders had rushed there, some in uniform and others in whatever they had on when they got the news.

“The members that were there, so many people hurting and crying,” he said. “I lost, but I could see what they also lost.”

Prudhomme and Forrest Gilbert, another city police officer who had been a Le Moyne hockey teammate of Michael’s, were already at the ER. They had just gotten the worst news moments before Paul arrived.

“It was not long after we got the word that (Michael) had been pronounced (dead),” Prudhomme said. “We went and hugged (Paul), for what seemed like it had to be five minutes, maybe longer.”

During the hug, Prudhomme said, Paul bowed his head and repeated, “My boy. My boy. My boy.”

Paul asked the police chaplain there to pray for his son, and for the officers who would have to keep patrolling the city while one of their own was in the hospital. Paul was in his son’s room when the chaplain performed last rites for Michael. Prudhomme put Michelle on speakerphone to hear the chaplain.

Michael’s older sister, ShelliAnn Jensen, 31, an epidemiologist, called in from Philadelphia to make sure her dad filled out the forms so Michael could be an organ donor.

One question asked whether Michael had ever been out of the country. Paul remembered past family trips to Ireland and Mexico.

Another asked whether Michael had any tattoos. It turned out he had secretly gotten a cross and the letters I.N.R.I. — an abbreviation for a Latin phrase found on many crucifixes — inked on his thigh some time ago.

ShelliAnn said she plans to get the same tattoo at some point. They had always talked about getting one together, she said.

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‘Nothing ever seemed to bother him’

Michael’s cool head could help provide a calming presence in the Jensen home, his mom said.

If he saw she was getting flustered, he would always ask her: Is it important? The answer would often turn out to be, no, it wasn’t.

“He just moved onto the next thing,” she said. “Nothing ever seemed to bother him.”

He was also intelligent, his sister said. He enjoyed checking stocks and gave her investment tips, she said.

Michael was fast with a smirk and a wry sense of humor that could keep people on their toes, his dad said.

As a kid, Michael started playing so many sports that their schedules were starting to overlap. You can’t get them all in, Paul recalled telling his son.

Hockey became his big sport. Michael traveled long distances for youth tournaments.

He kept up with hockey in college, following ShelliAnn to Le Moyne, and was the rookie of the year on the college club team during the 2013-14 season. A green Dolphins blanket still sits folded at the end of the bed in his childhood bedroom.

Michael was “effortlessly good,” ShelliAnn said.

The Jensens were regulars at Le Moyne games. They would stop to pick up a couple of fresh tomato pies, a Utica-area classic.

“It was from his hometown, and nobody else knew it,” Michelle said. “They know pizza, but they don’t know tomato pie.”

Michael was known at an early age for his work ethic.

He started cutting lawns so young that his feet couldn’t fully reach the pedal on the riding lawnmower, Paul said. His dad had to jerry-rig a block and wire ties so Michael could run it.

After Paul started paying Michael to trim the lawn, other people did, too. He’d drive his son from house to house.

“He got the money. I had all the expense,” Paul said, with a laugh.

Not built for desk work

After graduating from Rome Free Academy in 2013, he went to Le Moyne College. He got his bachelor’s degree in accounting in 2017 and an MBA in 2018.

Michael went to work for Bankers Healthcare Group in Syracuse. He moved on to Turning Stone Resort Casino and was promoted to staff accountant.

Around the holidays in 2021, Michael came home one day and told his parents that he was done with sitting behind a desk. He felt he needed to change to a career where he could move around and stay active.

“I don’t know why I got this degree,” Paul recalled his son saying.

Michael wanted to try for a career in firefighting or policing. He first applied to the Rome Fire Department but ended up in the Syracuse police, graduating from the academy in summer 2022.

His mom remembers that she was nervous about him becoming a police officer. Her son tried to reassure her.

“I know you’re going to worry, and I know you’re going to pray,” Michelle recalled him telling her. But he told her he really wanted to become a police officer.

Prudhomme and Gilbert, his hockey teammates and fellow cops, said they were surprised that Michael took the accounting jobs.

“He was good at it (accounting), but you know it never seemed right,” Prudhomme said. “He was an outgoing person, liked to be around people and interact.”

He gradually decided he was suited for law enforcement.

“I think the way he was, his personality, it had to happen,” Gilbert said.

The three friends had taken the civil service exam, necessary to pursue a police position, at the same time. But it took a little longer for Michael to commit.

From his first day in the academy, Michelle said, Michael enjoyed being a police officer.

Where some might see bike patrol at Destiny USA mall as menial, Michael relished the position, his dad said. He was given an officer of the month award in December, after only a year-and-a-half on the job.

Prudhomme and Gilbert agreed that, as a police officer, Michael’s strength was dealing with people. That’s why the Destiny USA detail, where he could pop into shops and meet people in the public areas, was a perfect fit.

“That would be him, goofing around with people,” Gilbert said. “He was just that happy, friendly person who would love that assignment, to talk and laugh with people.”

He bought a home in 2019 in Tipperary Hill. Michael was a regular at neighborhood bars like Blarney Stone and Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub, plus The Retreat in Liverpool.

He would rent out some of the extra rooms in his house to friends, including old hockey buddies from Le Moyne, his mother said. But he still returned to Rome.

“He would just come in, nobody knew he was coming,” his mother said. “He’d either stick around or even go to a friend’s house. Always unannounced.”

Coming home

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On Tuesday, about 200 police cars and motorcycles escorted a hearse carrying Michael’s body to Rome. The procession went by his home and some of his favorite childhood spots, including Franklyn’s Field park and sports complex. He would bike there with one of the family dogs in one of his arms, with the other grasping onto the bike’s handlebars, his mother said.

Police officers are standing watch over his body at the Nicholas J. Bush Funeral Home until he is buried. Calling hours will be held Friday night at the funeral home. The funeral will be Saturday at St. John the Baptist Church.

This week family, friends and police officers kept calling and visiting to console the family and share stories about Michael.

“The outpouring of support is unbelievable,” Paul and Michelle said, practically in unison.

On Wednesday, food and flowers crowded the counters at the family home as his parents and his sister talked about Michael. The kitchen was full, and more people kept walking in the front door of the blue house on West Oak Street.

A large black-and-white photo of Michael from high school rested above the fireplace. Rosary beads that once belonged to Michael’s maternal grandfather, for whom he was named, rested atop a framed photo of him in uniform upon graduating from the police academy.

“This man left so many impressions on people,” Paul said.

The man of honor

ShelliAnn last saw her brother when the Jensens were all in Rome for Christmas. Michael would often pick up extra shifts over the holidays, she said, so it was special when he was in town.

They had planned to go to 4 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass, she said. But the church was too full and they were turned away at the door.

ShelliAnn said Michael suggested they go instead to a local bar before Christmas Eve dinner and catch up.

“I’ll never be sad I skipped church on Christmas Eve,” she said.

Michael and his family had a big fall coming up.

He had agreed to be ShelliAnn’s “man of honor” — a twist on the maid of honor — when she marries her fiancée, Jared Groff, in October. He had peppered the couple with questions about how he should prepare.

Michael was set to deliver a speech at the wedding, even though ShelliAnn told him it wasn’t necessary.

“I can’t believe he won’t be at my wedding,” she said.

Did you know Officer Michael Jensen? If you would like to share memories or information about him, contact staff writers Jon Moss at jmoss@syracuse.com and Don Cazentre at dcazentre@syracuse.com.