Thousands Join Cuesta Family at Funeral

In a heart-wrenching ceremony that brought together thousands of law enforcement officers and one grieving Norwalk family, Los Angeles Police Officer Filbert H. Cuesta Jr. was laid to rest Friday, less than a week after he was gunned down in an early-morning street ambush.

Cuesta, the 26-year-old father of two infant girls, was remembered as a man who took time to buy groceries for impoverished families on his beat and to whisper “I love you” to his daughters over the phone while on patrol.

“He talked about the time when his baby girls would go to college,” said Dean Gonzales, pastor at the Norwalk church to which Cuesta and his family belonged. “No doubt they will. But he won’t be there to see them.”

More than 4,000 people attended the funeral for Cuesta at Calvary Chapel in Diamond Bar. Hundreds of police cars, firetrucks and other law enforcement vehicles later took part in a funeral caravan on the Pomona Freeway that stretched for several miles. Cuesta was buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, where many officers fought off tears as bagpipes wailed a final farewell.

“You dedicated your life to the protection and safety of others,” said Mayor Richard Riordan, one of dozens of elected officials at the service. “You protected the weak from peril, and you took time to shepherd young people who had lost their way.”

Cuesta, an officer in an anti-gang unit, was shot in the head Sunday as he sat in his parked patrol car, just outside a loud, rowdy party in southwest Los Angeles. He died hours later at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

About the same time that Cuesta’s funeral procession reached the end of its journey--a grave on a gently sloping hill--a 20-year-old reputed gang member was being charged in a Los Angeles courtroom with the killing.

Cuesta is the youngest of the 15 LAPD officers killed in the line of duty since 1990. He was gunned down just two days after returning from paternity leave.

On Friday, friends and relatives held his two daughters during the funeral. Four-week-old Sierra Rose sat quietly in an infant carrier. Samantha, 18 months, drank milk from a bottle. Clad in a white dress, she later waved at the large, color portrait of her father in his police uniform that stood over his coffin.

Sylvia Cuesta entered the chapel flanked by two LAPD officers, who helped her as she took uneasy steps toward her seat. Looking up at the large audience made up mostly of police officers, she seemed overwhelmed. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Thank you, Father.”

Inside the chapel and out, hundreds of police officers--most of whom never had met Cuesta--stood in silent tribute. There were khaki-clad sheriff’s deputies, California Highway Patrol officers in polished gold helmets, and corrections officers in dress uniforms. Dozens of agencies were represented, including police from San Diego, El Centro and other distant jurisdictions.

Gary Copland, Damian Velasco, Timothy Kalkus and other officers from the LAPD’s Southwest Division, where Cuesta served, took to the dais to remember their colleague.

“Thanks for all the times you said, ‘Let’s cruise the area one more time before we end our watch,’ ” one officer said. All vowed to Cuesta’s wife that they would keep their promise to Cuesta and look out for his children.

“He was our brother and we have sworn to protect his family,” Kalkus said. He told Sylvia Cuesta to expect “birthday gifts and offers of help from 20 men” in the years to come.

Cuesta worked hard on the job, but “he didn’t have to work hard at home because his love for his family came easy,” Kalkus said.

Sgt. Alexander Moreno, Cuesta’s supervisor at Southwest, remembered the night he was shot. “From the moment that he fell, he was never alone. There were brother and sister officers on the ground, there were officers in the air, there were officers faraway, on the radio,” all looking after him.

The mourners left the chapel to Bob Dylan’s rendition of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”:

Mama take this badge off of me . . . I can’t use it anymore. . . . Mama put my guns in the ground . . . I can’t shoot them anymore . . . I feel I’m knocking on heaven’s door.