Collection of Articles about Police Officers Killed by Semi- Automatic ...

Officer Lois M. Marrero, the first Tampa policewoman ever killed in action, will be laid to
rest at Myrtle Hill Cemetery after a 10 a.m. service at Sacred Heart Church.
Myrtle Hill also is where Tampa police Detectives Randy Bell and Ricky Childers are
buried. They were shot to death while on duty in 1998.
Hundreds began the long goodbye Monday night, attending a wake for Marrero at a
funeral home on Armenia Avenue. Some wept. Others, mostly fellow officers, wore stoic
expressions masking the shocking reminder that their jobs sometimes carry great risks
and deadly consequences.
Elsewhere, investigators moved ahead with the grim task of piecing together the details
of what happened, and why. The latter was proving the most difficult … though more
was emerging to suggest that Marrero's killer, Nester Luis DeJesus, 25, had been sliding
toward his own death spiral for months.
And while the investigators worked, hundreds of people who never knew Marrero made
donations and signed a giant card of sympathy, while still more kept coming to the
memorial in front of police headquarters downtown, piled high with flowers.
Marrero, 40, was killed Friday in an ambush at The Crossings apartment complex in
south Tampa, where DeJesus lived with his girlfriend, Paula Andrea Gutierrez, 24, and
their 2-year-old daughter.
Marrero and other officers were searching for two suspects in a robbery at a Bank of
America branch on Church Avenue. Police say DeJesus and Gutierrez were trying to get
away in a neighbor's car. As Marrero approached, DeJesus crouched behind the car, then
popped up and fired at her point-blank with a MAC11 pistol. She was hit in the side and
neck.
At Marrero's wake, mourners streamed down a narrow aisle past an open wooden casket
lined in white satin. Marrero, her hands bound with rosary beads, wore a crisp Tampa
police uniform.
Ed ""Pappy'' Plourde was one former colleague who attended. A 30-year veteran of the
Tampa Police Department, Plourde is a strong man, a big man, a tough cop. He was a
sergeant who turned police academy rookies into streetwise officers.
The ones who made it … some didn't … became Pappy's "children,'' he said. They
included Marrero. He was her sergeant when she broke into the ranks in 1982.
"When they come out of the academy, they are like diamonds in the rough,'' he said.
""It was my job to polish those diamonds.''
Marrero was one who polished well.
"She was a very conscientious individual,'' said Plourde, who retired 10 years ago. "She
was enthusiastic about every assignment she had, whether it was driving the wagon or
walking the beat.''
Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder also came, hugging teary-eyed cops and offering
words of condolence to family and friends.
"What makes this so tough is with Lois, I was not just her chief, I was her friend,''
Holder said.
Mayor Dick Greco recalled Childers' and Bell's funerals three years ago.
"I had hoped I never would have to see that again, and being here today brings all that
back.''