Mourners Recall a Fallen Deputy

Images of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy David Powell washed over the 3,000 mourners at Calvary Chapel in Downey on Friday morning:

The good-natured man who married a woman with three teenage daughters and a one-bathroom house....

The playful deputy who watched a speeding driver spot his patrol car, slam on the brakes and screech five feet past the crosswalk line at a stoplight. Powell couldn’t resist barking over the car’s loudspeaker: “Safe!” Powell still pulled him over....

The worried son who insisted on accompanying his mother on her predawn walks and pointed out the constellations in the sky....

The risk-taker who saved an elderly man from killing himself by wresting a knife out of his hands. It won him a Medal of Valor award.

“Dave died believing he was going to save another person’s life -- not knowing that his life would be given,” Sheriff Lee Baca, his voice pinched with pain, told the hushed crowd.

Powell, 42, was responding to a report of gunfire Saturday morning when he and several other deputies went to the front door of an Artesia home where it was believed that a man was holding a woman hostage. After trying to kick in the door, Powell was shot in the right shoulder by the man. The bullet traveled through an armhole in his protective vest into his chest. The woman who authorities thought was being held hostage had escaped earlier.

Powell, the second L.A. County sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty this year, was eulogized Friday by friends, family and officials who recounted funny stories, then minutes later struggled to keep talking through their tears.

“I will not apologize for crying,” Powell’s twin brother, John, told the mourners. “I loved David too deeply.”

Among the speakers was Gov. Gray Davis, who said that “Dave has surrendered all of his tomorrows so we can enjoy our tomorrows.”

Also attending were Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, county Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and rows of Powell’s friends and family.

Powell met his wife, Emma, at the Lawndale Christian Church. He sang in the choir. The couple, who lived in Torrance, would have celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary next month. Besides Powell’s wife and his brother, other family members present included their 7-year-old daughter, Brianna; Emma’s adult children, Amanda, Alicia and Monique; Powell’s parents, William and Joanne; and Amanda’s husband, Shawn Alvira.

But mostly the church was packed with uniformed men and women, not just from the Sheriff’s Department but from almost every law enforcement agency in every county in Southern California, their faces somber, their backs straight, their hands encased in white dress gloves.

“He’s a fallen brother,” said Long Beach Police Park Ranger Mario Camacho as he walked into the church.

Powell was born in Torrance, and once dreamed of being a doctor. While attending Loyola Marymount University, majoring in chemistry, he volunteered at hospitals.

But meeting police officers and firefighters through his hospital work showed him that “his true passion and love was for law enforcement,” said Capt. Dave Fender, commander of the Lakewood station, where Powell was assigned.

The deputy spent his last 12 years there, working in a patrol car.

Powell loved his radio car. Every morning, after the briefing in the station, he would walk around the car, checking the tires, recalled Lu Ann Ferraro -- who was his traffic citation secretary for 14 years -- after the service.

“He was just, like, the biggest dork,” she chuckled, adding quickly that she meant that only with the greatest affection. “We’d say, ‘Dave, what the heck are you looking for?’ He just laughed at us.”

When she heard he had been shot, she assumed he would be fine. “He was Mr. Safety,” she said. “He always wore his vest.” He even hung his helmet over the passenger side of the car, giving the appearance of another deputy, Ferraro said.

During the service, Baca had told the mourners, “There is no more difficult job in law enforcement than working in a radio car.” To recognize that diligence, the Sheriff’s Department will award special pins for deputies who work 10 years in a patrol car. “Dave Powell will get the first pin, and it will be No. 1,” Baca said.

The deputies and staff at the Lakewood station have made their own special memorial to their fallen colleague. They have been signing the door of his locker. There are so many tributes on the outside that people will have to start writing on the inside, said Michael Calderon, a jailer at the station.

Calderon wrote his own goodbye: “Take care. Miss you, brother.”