Dallies Remembered as Careful, Alert : Colleagues and relatives say he was a by-the-book veteran officer who knew the dangers of the job but was tiring of the violence.

Officer Howard E. Dallies Jr. was remembered by friends and colleagues Tuesday as a friendly, unassuming man. He was a by-the-book cop, known for being alert and cautious.

So it surprised many of the city’s police when it appeared that Dallies had been shot to death by a motorcyclist early Tuesday before he could even remove his gun from the holster.

“Of all the guys in this department, Howard Dallies would be the last guy you would think would let his guard down,” Sgt. George Jaramillo said. “He was always so careful.”

In fact, when it came time to teach younger officers about the department’s rules and procedures, Dallies was the one often called upon.

“He’s a very solid veteran officer who people actually looked up to as a role model,” Capt. David Abrecht said. “Howard is not a careless officer.”

Dallies had “a respect of the violence out there,” Abrecht added. “He hadn’t made it to the point where he was so hardened or so afraid of everything. How this situation occurred when he walked up to the suspect is still a mystery.”

Dallies’ father, owner of an auto repair shop in Orange, also said his son was a careful veteran who knew the dangers of the job.

“I heard on the news they are saying that he didn’t have his gun drawn from his holster,” Howard Dallies Sr. said. “Something is wrong. He was much too alert to be caught like that.”

Standing in front of his auto repair shop, Dallies Sr. said his son “was much too smart to die like that. He was too young to die, period.”

Dallies Jr., known to some by the nickname “Howdy,” was dedicated to his job, but also very “family-oriented,” Lt. John Woods said.

First married for less than a year in 1983, Dailies met his second wife, Mary, at the Police Department, where she was a dispatcher. Together they had two sons, ages 4 and 7. Mary Dallies is now a dispatcher at the Irvine Police Department.

Dallies had a keen interest in computers, but “his hobby was his family,” said Dallies’ cousin David Weaver, 32, of Garden Grove. “We’re a real tight family.”

Dallies moved from Beaver Falls, Pa., to Orange County when he was 10 years old and attended several schools in the Garden Grove and Placentia area.

After graduating from a Garden Grove high school, relatives said, Dallies joined the Army and became a military police officer. After his service, Dallies worked briefly for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in 1978. A year later, he joined the Placentia Police Department, where he stayed for five years before transferring to Garden Grove in 1984.

One of Dallies’ specialties was narcotics enforcement, and for two years he was loaned to the county’s elite drug team, the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program. Working undercover, Dallies was involved in many large drug arrests.

When he returned to the Garden Grove Police Department about 18 months ago, colleagues said, it was with a renewed enthusiasm. Dallies let it be known that he was interested in being promoted to the rank of sergeant, and he enrolled at Orange Coast College to further his education.

During his nine years with the force, Dallies had accumulated a file full of commendations from the public and his superiors. Sgt. Jamarillo said the 26 notations in Dallies’ file included calls from people who praised the officer’s conduct and notes from his superiors praising his ideas and his work as a training officer.

Despite his commitment to the job, several of his cousins said Dallies was also beginning to grow weary of police work and the increasing violence that went with it.

“He talked about getting out someday,” said Chester Weaver, 33, of Riverside, who hurried into the Police Department Tuesday trying to get information about the incident.

“He loved his job, but he was also getting tired of all the violence,” said David Weaver, Chester’s brother. “I once told him that I wanted to join the Garden Grove Police Department, and he told me that there were better ways to spend my time.”

David Weaver wasn’t the only one to seek advice from Dallies.

Officer Brian Eggen said Dallies was the kind of guy many officers confided in, often over a cup of coffee.

“He was one of the few guys you could really trust,” Eggen said. “He was very fair. Very approachable. He’d try and find a bright side to your problem.”

Matt Jones, a police cadet in Garden Grove, said Dallies frequently offered to help him with his schoolwork in police science.

“He helped me through narcotics detection school,” Jones said. “He would quiz me on everything, and because of him I got A’s on all my tests. . . . He was a hell of a guy.”

The news of Dallies’ death spread quickly throughout the county Tuesday morning.

In a Santa Ana Superior courtroom where a former Garden Grove police officer and a current one were defending themselves in a civil trial against allegations that they unjustifiably gunned down a man, both defendants cried after hearing the details of Dallies’ death.

Officers Mark Van Holt and Roger Keyes had been colleagues and good friends of Dallies, said their lawyer, Bruce Praet. Van Holt is now an officer with the Los Alamitos Police Department.

“He was a good friend, a nice guy; everyone liked him. We were even partners for a while,” Keyes said, before walking from the courtroom with fellow officers.

“It hurts too much for me to talk about it right now,” said a teary Garden Grove Sgt. Frank Hauptmann, who was in court to support Van Holt and Keyes. This was the fifth officer he had known to die in the line of duty, Hauptmann said, “and it just hurts more than ever.”

Times staff writers David A. Avila, Lily Dizon, Kevin Johnson and Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this story.