Officers Lay Slain Colleague to Rest : Farewell: Hundreds attend funeral of Thomas Worley, who was killed in a gun battle.

Robert Worley looked out from a church pulpit Thursday at hundreds of police officers who had come to mourn his son, a Los Angeles County Safety Police officer slain just days before Christmas in a gun battle with a robbery suspect.

“I would hope you can join us in hope,” he said at the funeral of Thomas Benton Worley. “Because death will not have the last word here. Life will have the last word here.”

With that, police officers from all over Southern California lifted their hymn books in unison and belted out a rousing rendition of “On Eagles’ Wings”--a vibrant tribute to Worley, who had dreamed his whole life of being a police officer, and died living out his dream.

Worley, 33, was shot Dec. 21 in the crowded parking lot of a Canoga Park strip mall after confronting Jesus Valenzuela, 44, who witnesses said had just held up a discount shoe store in the mall.

After Worley identified himself as a police officer, investigators said, Valenzuela shot at him. The officer returned fire. Worley, who was off duty and not wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot in the chest and groin and died about 90 minutes later. Valenzuela, an ex-convict with three robbery convictions, was wounded and died within the hour from internal bleeding.

At the funeral Thursday at the First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica, family, friends and law enforcement officials sought to understand how it was that Worley and Valenzuela came to square off in a suburban mini-mall parking lot, with both ending up mortally wounded.

What was particularly difficult to accept, mourners said, was that Worley died so young--leaving a young wife, Pam, 29, and two young children, Christina, 6, and Matthew, 2.

“Tom is my brother and right now, as with everyone else in this room, I can make no sense of this,” said Charles Worley, 23. “It’s tugging at my ability to make sense of much of anything.”

If there was solace to be found, mourners said, it was in the fact that Thomas Worley had a lifelong passion for police work. His brother called it “a huge love in his heart” that elevated police work to a patriotic duty.

Worley had served as a policeman in the Air Force, worked as a private security guard when he got out, and then, 18 months ago, was accepted into the Safety Police, the sworn officers who provide security for county facilities such as office buildings and hospitals.