Officers’ funerals bring together community

Kelsey Kremer/The Register

Members of the Des Moines Fire Department hang a large american flag for Des Moines Police Officer Susan Farrell’s funeral procession to pass under on Wednesday, March 30, 2016, outside of Hope Lutheran Church in West Des Moines.

Alex Connor
March 31, 2016

The deaths of two Des Moines police officers have shaken the nation.

Early Saturday morning, March 26, officers Carlos Puente-Morales and Susan Farrell were transporting passenger Tosha Hyatt from Council Bluffs to Des Moines on warrant when their SUV crashed head-on into the car of 25-year-old Benjamin Beary, who was driving the wrong way on I-80.

No one survived the fiery crash.

Puente-Morales and Farrell’s deaths, however, will not be forgotten. A winding motorcade of approximately 1,000 officers from across Iowa and the country attended Farrell’s funeral on Wednesday.

Puente-Morales’ funeral will take place at 8:30 a.m. Friday at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in West Des Moines, and he will be buried at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery in Adel, Iowa.

Hundreds of fellow police officers, family and friends attended Farrell’s funeral, which began at 11 a.m. Wednesday. A long line of officers paid their respects to Farrell, as the room stood in silence before the regular funeral proceedings began.

Farrell and Puente-Morales are among 22 officers who have lost their lives while serving Des Moines. The first death was in 1891 and the latest before Farrell and Puente-Morales was in 2008.

Farrell is the first female officer to be killed in action in Iowa, according to the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Both Farrell and Puente-Morales had served with the Des Moines Police Department for only five months. However, both had served in many other roles, including friend, spouse and parent.

After a short prayer, Police Chief Dana Wingert greeted the family, friends and fellow officers by extending his deepest sympathies, asking the family of Farrell to “make no mistake, your hurt is our hurt.”

He described Farrell as a gift, a woman who worked hard and was always looking to improve, and an officer who “you can’t go wrong with.”

Wingert described the moment in which they were notified of both Farrell and Puente-Morales’ death as one of the memories where you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing.

“They didn’t make it,” he said, his words heavy.

Wingert also addressed the Des Moines Police Academy’s 73rd Recruit Class that graduated in October. Farrell and Puente-Morales were among the 18 members.

“You need to rise above this,” Wingert told the new officers, offering support from himself and the community.

Among the motorcade for Farrell, which stretched from Farrell’s funeral at the Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines along Interstates 35 and 80 to the burial site at the Highland Memory Gardens Cemetery, were officers from Story County law enforcement, including the ISU and Ames police departments.

“Law enforcement officers have a very unique bond across the world, really,” said Anthony Greiter, community outreach officer with the ISU Police Department. “We consider ourselves to be brothers and sisters, whether we’ve met one another or not. So when one of us dies, especially when one of us dies in the line of duty, it’s a really difficult thing.”

Greiter said not only was the law enforcement support “a testament to the family that they truly have in law enforcement,” but the support from the surrounding community in the face of a tragedy was very moving.

Greiter said he saw a lot of Des Moines community members outside their houses, cars, work, schools and places of worship, all in support of Farrell.

One of the organizations that stepped in to help organize the funerals of Farrell and Puente-Morales was Iowa C.O.P.S, an organization that is dedicated to helping survivors and honoring fallen officers, Greiter said.

Greiter said Iowa C.O.P.S stepped in to offer their help within hours of learning of the crash and helped organizing the funerals, traffic and getting carnations for officers to pin to their badges.