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Powerful picture: Police officer’s children pray for his safety after Baton Rouge shooting

[This picture says more than a thousand words/Facebook]

A dramatic photo of two children praying for their father and other police officers captures the grief and tension ebbing in the U.S. in the wake of multiple police shootings.

Kneeling in front of their dad’s patrol car, the two children in the photo are dressed in their own police uniforms and are praying before their dad heads to work.

The photo was shared by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, the same day three police officers were killed and three more injured in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by a gunman.

“In nearly 30 years of law enforcement, I have never witnessed the types of brazen attacks we are seeing against officers,” IMPD police officer Troy Riggs said in a statement, ABC News reports, in response to the Baton Rouge shootings.

The image has touched thousands online after being posted.

“It’s sad,” one woman wrote. “What a society we live in where children have to be made aware of that mommy and daddy may encounter someone with a gun and they won’t be coming home.”

Another added: “Heartbreaking that young children have to know of such ‘hate’ in our world and fear for the lives of their heroic parents who protect us all everyday.”