Fla. police officer remembered by friends

November 25, 2008 03:56 AM

By Macollvie Jean-Francois
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Officer Alex Del Rio’s black-and-white patrol car was a fixture on the block where he lived.

Neighbor Carol Lovins, who has lived in the 2400 block of North 62nd Avenue for two decades, noticed the cruiser missing Sunday morning. Later that day, she found out the car and Del Rio are gone forever.

“It’s just horrible,” Lovins said Monday. “When I saw those police cars flying down Sheridan, “I said ‘Something terrible must’ve happened.’”

That was Saturday, about 8:40 p.m. That’s when Del Rio, 31, crashed into a palm tree in the 7000 block of Sheridan Street. The car, a 2005 Ford Crown Victoria, burst into flames. He died at the scene.

Detectives are investigating the circumstances, police said. Del Rio may have been chasing a speeding driver and tried to avoid striking a taxicab when he careened into the tree.

Monday, officers, relatives and friends continued mourning Del Rio, reflecting on the roles he played in their lives.

“All these people who knew him are just like, ‘Wow, why did God take him,’” friend Don Philip, of Miami, said. “He loved his job, he loved everything it stood for. If anyone came to his house, you had to be correct.”

Del Rio was the type, Philip said, who would tell people he’d have to arrest them if he caught them acting unlawfully. He would not, for example, allow anyone underage to drink in his presence. Once, a neighbor said, he refused to date someone when he found out the person smoked marijuana.

At the Hollywood Police Department, chaplains and a group of victim’s advocates were made available to comfort the brotherhood Del Rio leaves behind.

Back on Del Rio’s street, about two miles east of the crash site, no one answered the door. But people drove or stopped by, and the neighbors continued talking about the gentle, respectful fitness buff.

Neighbor Linda Mendez said, he once backed over her old mailbox and she found him uprighting it later that day. He loved key lime pie too, she said, smiling.

“He was a beautiful man,” Mendez said. “It kills me, to have to go to his funeral [Wednesday].”