| Los Angeles police Officer Laura Gerritsen rushed to the Metrolink crash in Chatsworth on Friday afternoon along with hundreds of her fellow officers, unaware that her best friend and co-worker was among the dead.
It was only later, said Gerritsen’s father, John, that his daughter realized that Spree DeSha, 35, was likely on the train.
DeSha’s uniformed body was found in the lead passenger car, the one that suffered the most damage in the crash.
Gerritsen said his daughter helped remove DeSha’s body from the crumpled train car late Friday evening.
“The body was draped with an American flag as they took her out,” said Gerritsen, his eyes welling in tears, as he stood in the front yard of the one-acre lot in Simi Valley where DeSha lived with his daughter.
A phalanx of Los Angeles police officers stood alongside the derailed train under floodlights Friday night waiting for DeSha’s body to be removed.
At a news briefing on Saturday, Los Angeles Police Department First Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell wore a dark band across his badge in remembrance of DeSha.
“She sat in the first (car) as a matter of practice so if someone came on the train and was disruptive, she’d be in a position to handle it,” he said.
DeSha joined the LAPD in 2001, said Karen Smith, an LAPD officer and spokeswoman for the department.
DeSha had worked at the North Hollywood Division and had transferred last week to the department’s operations division in downtown Los Angeles.
“Enough cannot be said about the quality of her character,” Gerritsen said, as he petted DeSha’s brown Doberman pinscher. |
