COEUR d'ALENE - It's been difficult week for law enforcement in North Idaho and understandably difficult for former Coeur d'Alene Police Officer Mike Kralicek.

Kralicek, 45, was shot in the line of duty on Dec. 28, 2004. He sustained almost the same injuries that killed Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore on Tuesday.

While Kralicek has been reluctant to talk with the media, he agreed to talk with The Press, but he wanted to make sure the story was not about him.

"I don't want to make this about me," Kralicek said, in telephone interview from Seattle. "This is about Greg, his coworkers and his family.

"I want to make sure they are supported. I don't want the family to think anything other than how much we support them and love them."

Kralicek was still trying to decide on Friday afternoon if he was going to attend Moore's funeral. He doesn't want to divert attention away from Moore's funeral service, but he does want show his support.

Because of what he went through 10 years ago, it is hard for Kralicek to go into a room of police officers without drawing attention to himself. It is a real dilemma for him.

"I am afraid to go to the funeral," he said. "I am worried that might happen, and I don't want it to. I really just want his family supported."

Compounding the tragedy of Moore's death is the fact that Kralicek just lost another friend who was shot in the line of duty in Coos County, Oregon, two weeks earlier.

"He was one of my (Field Training Officers) and he was my best friend," Kralicek said, adding he was friends with Officer Gill Datan before he became a police officer himself.

Datan died on April 20, and while Kralicek was processing that tragedy, he received the news of Moore's death. He got that call at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning and his life has been a whirlwind ever since.

"At that point you kind of think 'is the universe out to get me?'" he said, adding it was a very emotional time for him.

He said the media calls started right away.

"Frankly, I thought that was really kind of offensive," Kralicek said. "You know, it was kind of like, 'give us some time here.'"

Kralicek said the shootings really made him think about how God works and why he chooses to let one man live and others die.

"When I got the news, I really wanted Greg to survive, but in a way I didn't want Greg to suffer like I did either," he said.

But then Kralicek learned that Moore had told friends that if he was ever shot in the line of duty, he would have preferred to go through the pain Kralicek went through.

"He told them 'Mike did it, I can do it too,'" he said. "I didn't think anybody would have wanted to go through that, but you never really know what someone's final wishes are."

He said the situation causes some conflicting emotions. When someone is unconscious, Kralicek said, you don't know what their frame of mind is. He can recall lying on the floor after he was shot, but he couldn't communicate or see anything.

He was told that he went unconscious the minute he was shot, but he still has memories of being aware of his surroundings at that time.

"So no one really knows, and that's what is hard," Kralicek said.

He recalled his first memories of Moore. Kralicek was in field training and part of that training tests an officer's ability to get along with other officers.

Kralicek said it usually requires the training officer to prank another officer on the force. They are graded on a scale of one to five, with a score of one for getting caught and five points for pulling it off.

Kralicek's field training officer told him to pull a prank on Moore, so they followed Moore to Lowe's Hardware and waited for him to go inside. Kralicek was parked in the U-Haul parking lot across the street.

When Moore went into the store, Kralicek ran over to Moore's vehicle, got inside and turned on the power that operates his lights and sirens.

When Moore came back to the police cruiser and started it up, they all went off.

Moore got on the radio and announced that Kralicek had pranked him, and told Kralicek "it's on."

"My FTO said 'That's what I call a five,'" Kralicek said, adding that his training officer commended him for pulling off the prank where they could observe it, but also for having it announced over the radio.

"Greg was my first prank," he said.

Kralicek said it's hard for the public to understand what a police officer's life is like.

"We never get to see any good," he said, explaining people call the police when they are in trouble or something terrible is happening.

"The public doesn't understand what the families have to go through, and we can't tell our families what we go through," he said, adding that is all the more reason for the community to show its support for Moore's family.