Community Mourns Death of ‘Hero’

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Warford was so beloved in this town that only the community college gymnasium was big enough to hold the crowd at his funeral Thursday.

In more than 20 years as a community service officer for the local sheriff’s station, he let the other deputies do the headline-grabbing arrests. Instead, he went to community meetings, taught law classes, organized high school dances and played Santa Claus at Boys & Girls clubs.

In an era before “community policing” became the idea of the hour, friends say Warford became so involved it was often unclear whether he represented the community or the police. “He was a force unto himself,” said Lt. Robert Elson, the second-in-command at the sheriff’s station.

Warford died at home last week of an apparent heart attack. He was 51.

“Usually when someone passes away, [people] say nice things about him,” said Ze Gonzales, a salesman who served on the sheriff’s citizen advisory panel. “But Bob, they said nice things about him while he was here.”

More than a thousand mourners sat in the bleachers at College of the Canyons and on folding chairs on the basketball court surrounding a yellow floral badge. Swaths of tan and khaki--uniform colors of the Sheriff’s Department--surrounded Warford’s wife and two sons. Young men and women in his Explorer program stood in a clump by the wall.

The district attorney’s office shut down for several hours to enable employees to attend the funeral. City Council members, small business owners, students and teachers came to remember. Sheriff Sherman Block, who offered one of five eulogies, said that of the 900 sergeants under his command, Warford stood out.

“He did make a difference,” Block said. Block presented posthumously the department’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, to Warford’s widow, Patricia.

Most seemed to remember Warford’s “Colgate smile” and humor, though it seemed so ingrained in his personality that many had trouble recalling a singular prank or practical joke. But Sheriff’s Capt. Marv Dixon remembered when he made the mistake of leaving his electronic calendar on his desk.

“He went through it, making some of the most shocking and X-rated appointments you can imagine,” Dixon said. Warford made appointments for five years, including admonishments to “take your favorite sergeant to lunch.”

Cmdr. Robert Spierer even remembered a time when the joke, for once, was on Warford. The sergeant had been nominated for an award that no one at the station thought he would actually win. In compiling a short biography, one of the deputies had included as a joke that Warford’s friends called him by the nickname, “Warfie,” even though it wasn’t true.

Somehow, the nickname made it into the official program. Warford’s face fell as he learned about it as the award was presented.

“The name stuck because when the sheriff calls you Warfie, you’re Warfie,” Spierer said.

Those at the station spoke as if they lost not just a friend, but a close relative.

“It’s like losing your dad,” Deputy Steve Patterson said.

A phalanx of deputies escorted the casket out with the family in a display usually reserved for those who die in the line of duty.

But Warfie’s colleagues say he didn’t need to die a hero. Quietly, without fanfare, he had lived that way every single day.