Staff Sergeant Christian Reed

On September 26, 2018, he brought that same devotion to Verified Response Security & Investigations, where he rose to the rank of Captain and had earned a coming promotion to Assistant Chief. In the field he worked shoulder to shoulder with Dallas police officers and with the clients he was entrusted to protect — and time and again, the people he served became the people he called friends. He led with his whole heart and never asked anyone to do what he would not do himself — he wore the same uniform, stood the same posts, and always had his people’s backs. His commitment reached beyond his own post and into the profession itself — a member of the Associated Security Services and Investigators of the State of Texas (ASSIST), he served as its North Texas Region Vice President, lending his leadership to his fellow security professionals across the region. Reed believed, genuinely, in making a difference in the communities he protected, and he lived by the standard he loved: “Verified Results, Rapid Response.” For Reed, service was never simply a job or a title. It was who he was.

But those closest to him knew that his greatest devotion was to the family he built. Reed met Krystal in January 2019, when he was twenty-five and newly home from a deployment that had cost him a dear friend. Krystal, twelve years his senior, was a widow raising five children and running her security company after the loss of her husband, Bob. To Reed, the years between them meant nothing at all; two people who had each survived something found in one another a reason not to give up. Few young men of twenty-five would have embraced all that Reed did so willingly — a wife, five children to love as his own, and a hand in running the family business — but he never hesitated, because loving people with his whole heart was simply who he was. Reed never tried to replace what Krystal had lost; instead, he loved her through her grief, gently gathered the broken pieces of her heart, and told her — again and again — that she was the strongest person he had ever known. He never let her give up on herself. He said he was lucky to have her. She was the love of his life.

They began dating that June, and on February 3, 2020, they married. On April 22, 2021, they welcomed their son, Teagan — the missing piece who made their family whole. To Krystal’s five older children, Reed was a stepfather in name, but he carried that role humbly — not as a replacement for the dad they had lost, Bob, but as a steady friend and guide who helped shape them, championed them, and always honored their father’s place. To his sons Michael and Teagan, he was simply Dad. Teagan, his youngest, was the light of his life — a little boy he loved and adored, who carries his father’s eyes and all the goodness that lived in him. Reed had sung to Teagan since before his son was born — his voice a comfort even in the womb — and on the day Teagan came into the world, he danced with his newborn son in the hospital room. Reed never believed that family was a matter of blood; he believed love, not lineage, was what made a family — and he chose all seven of them with his whole heart, holding them at the very center of his world. He was Krystal’s best friend, her biggest supporter, and her Disney partner for life. Whether he was leading his officers, standing beside his fellow soldiers, showing up for the older kids, or down on the floor with the littlest ones, Reed gave everything he had to the people he loved.

If you knew Reed, you knew his smile could light up any room — and chances are you can still picture him — an amazing dancer — in the middle of the dance floor, cheered on by everyone around him. His laugh was contagious, and he never missed a chance to make someone feel seen or to bring a little more joy into an ordinary day. He loved to dance and to sing, forever moving around the office or the house with a guitar never far from reach, and even his work carried that joy — “If you’re not having fun at work,” he liked to say, “you’re not working.” i Music was woven through his whole life and his marriage — metal, rock, country, hip-hop, and rap all had a place in his heart. He loved Post Malone, Kevin Gates, Luke Combs, and Metallica. He and Krystal kept up a laughing, never-settled debate over who was better, Megan Thee Stallion or Cardi B (Reed was forever Team Megan; Krystal will always be Team Cardi). Wherever Reed was, life felt a little lighter and a great deal warmer.

One of Reed’s favorite verses was John 15:13: