Response to Officer’s Death Is a Flood of Contributions

Thanks to a public outpouring that amazed and touched Glendale officers, the widow of slain police investigator Charles Lazzaretto was presented with checks for about $170,000 Tuesday--money from hundreds of donations that have rolled in since the young officer was gunned down in May.

“I’m surprised. I really am. On a day-to-day basis, people are yelling at you. . . . No one is happy to see you,” said Police Sgt. Mark Hansen. “But this makes you see it, all this community support. . . . It means a great deal.”

Annamaria Lazzaretto accepted the money at a Glendale City Council meeting.

“I want to thank everyone for their support and caring for my husband,” she said, the only words she got out before sinking back into her seat in tears.

She recovered just enough to whisper to her 2-year-old son, who stared at her and asked, “Why are you crying?”

Charles Lazzaretto was shot May 27 in a darkened warehouse in Chatsworth while trying to catch a man who had allegedly tried to kill a girlfriend. Lazzaretto and his partner, thinking the suspect--Israel Chapa Gonzalez--might try again, went to the warehouse to check out Gonzalez’s workplace.

They walked into an ambush. Gonzalez opened fire, slaying Lazzaretto and later wounding two Los Angeles officers before killing himself.

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Lazzaretto, a rising star in the department, was the only Glendale officer to be slain since 1915, and the city’s response has been swift and heartfelt.

Within hours, the police station was jammed with flowers. More than 500 cards have arrived. And calls have poured in, including one on Tuesday from FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.

Donations for the Lazzaretto family trust have also flowed to the Glendale Police Officers Assn.

Over the last month, “everywhere I went . . . I was handed checks and sometimes just cash,” said Sgt. Rick Young, Glendale police spokesman. “It’s very touching for the officers. We normally don’t get that.”

Large corporations sent big checks. Children handed over dollar bills. There were handfuls of loose coins from donation jars set out at grocery stores. There was an anonymous donation of $25,000.

The most unexpected gift? Eighty dollars from day laborers at the city’s designated temporary-work site. The laborers said they had taken up a collection because they liked Lazzaretto, who regularly stopped by the site to see that they stayed out of trouble.

“No dinero, mucho corazon!” said one 30-year-old day laborer, slapping his chest to explain: They have no money but a lot of heart.

“I tell you, when you get the day laborers . . . ,” said Police Chief James E. Anthony, shaking his head. “It’s been remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it in my 34-year career.”

Businesses also donated. San Marino Caterers and Cimm’s Inc., owner of Burger King franchises, each gave the proceeds of a day’s restaurant sales to the cause. Cimm’s went one step further, asking for matching funds, and eventually raised $30,000.

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During the fund-raiser, a doctor from a nearby hospital walked across the street and handed over $1,000, said Larry Cimmarusti of Cimm’s.

“The neatest thing was to see how the community could come together,” Cimmarusti said. “I didn’t believe that existed anymore.”

Family members are touched, said Annamaria Lazzaretto’s father, Bob Taylor, a deputy police chief at USC.

As Annamaria Lazzaretto and the couple’s two sons, Andrew, 3, and Matthew, 2, looked on Tuesday, Taylor called the response from Glendale “enormously supportive, heartwarming and overwhelming.”

He quoted from Walt Whitman: “True compassion runs deeper than the kind of grief in which we know only our own pain . . . “

Authorities say the donations for Lazzaretto have been exceptionally large. Trust funds for slain police officers, though, are not uncommon, and large amounts are sometimes raised, said Officer Ramona Beaty of the Los Angeles Police Memorial Fund.

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The Memorial Fund itself raises $200,000 to $400,000 a year to pay for all kinds of unexpected needs officers’ families might have, from funerals to medical treatment, but the money is spread among scores of officers, said Sgt. Alan Atkins.

In addition to the donations, Lazzaretto’s family will receive a pension, worker’s compensation, and money from the federal government provided to families of officers killed in the line of duty, said Sgt. Jim Woody.

Lazzaretto’s sons will also be able to attend state colleges or universities tuition-free, said Taylor.

Annamaria Lazzaretto “still feels very much lost,” said her father, in a separate interview.

“She called me the other day and said, ‘Dad, you will see a lot more of the boys. They need a role model,’ ” he said.

Added spokesman Young: “Her toughest time is evening, of course, when she’s home alone.”