Every Sunday evening, for the better part of 26 weeks, after Nicolle Thompson-Williams finished having dinner with her two kids, she would load them into the backseat of her Mercedes 190, drive 45 minutes to their teacher’s house and drop them off for five days while she studied at the Riverside County Sheriff Department’s police academy.
Thompson-Williams had recently gone through a divorce, and raising two children on her own — new Detroit Lions running back Jamaal Williams and his younger sister, Jaela — she did not want to live life with any regrets.
A sixth-grade math and science teacher, Thompson-Williams had long considered becoming a police officer, and at 35 years old was about to give her kids their first lesson in the power of hard work and pursuing your dreams.