Hundreds of LAPD officers gather for downtown L.A. service to honor fallen Officer Juan Diaz
The funeral for a Los Angeles Police Department officer gunned down while off duty in Lincoln Heights last month drew hundreds of his peers to a downtown L.A. cathedral Monday morning.
Flanked by dozens of LAPD vehicles along Temple Street just outside Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels, the hearse holding the casket of Officer Juan Diaz pulled up with red and blue lights blaring, and a small, fluttering American flag attached its hood.
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Just before 9 a.m., six pallbearers – three of Diaz’s cousins dressed in white, and three LAPD officers in uniform – took the casket from the hearse.
They carried him inside the cathedral, where Chief Michel Moore, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the officer’s family and friends were waiting.
The shooting that killed Diaz “has shaken the department to our core,” LAPD spokesman Josh Rubenstein said outside the cathedral.
Diaz, a 24-year-old rookie, was sitting inside a pickup truck driving away from a taco stand near Artesian Street and Avenue 26 after midnight on July 27 when, detectives said, a gang member ran up and fired at the vehicle.
Diaz and another man inside the truck were struck. After his girlfriend flagged down a nearby LAPD cruiser, officers tried to save Diaz, but he died at the scene. The other man suffered facial injuries but survived.
Suspect Christian Facundo, 20, of Temecula was angry after Diaz spotted him tagging a wall near the taco stand and told him to stop, police have said.
After an argument, Facundo and another man, 23-year-old Francisco Talamantes, left the scene but quickly returned, authorities said.
Police said Facundo was the shooter, with both men getting arrested on Aug. 2 in Temecula and now facing murder charges. A third suspect, 18-year-old Ashlynn Smith, faces an accessory-to-murder charge.
Diaz grew up in the Lincoln Heights area, dreaming of becoming a cop. He was assigned to the Special Operations Division unit of the department’s Professional Standards Bureau.
He is survived by his father, mother and two sisters.
Inside the church on Monday, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez presided over the ceremony. Father Tesfaldet Asghedom, the pastor for the Diaz family from Sacred Heart Parish in Lincoln Heights, gave the homily.
Following the ceremony, a procession took Diaz to his burial site at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.
At the foot of steep hills, dozens of LAPD officers stood at attention, over looking Diaz’s flag-covered casket. About 250 people gathered under green tents or looked on from across a road in the afternoon heat.
Four LAPD officers on horses led a fifth horse, without a rider and with boots in its stirrups facing backward; the officers and horses escorted the hearse to the burial site.
After a blessing, a “missing man” formation of four LAPD helicopters flew overhead – with one helicopter breaking off from the formation and flying over the hills, out of sight, as the others continued on.
Seven officers fired three shots each, followed by the playing of bagpipes.
Chief Moore took the wrapped American flag, which had been on the coffin, and presented it to Diaz’s mother.
And a tamborazo, a small Mexican-style band, played as the family placed white roses on the casket before it was buried.