Scores of law enforcement officers participated in a procession Friday morning for slain Miami-Dade police Detective Cesar “Echy” Echaverry.
Echaverry, who was engaged to be married, died on Wednesday at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center after a five-year career with MDPD. He was 29.
Officers from jurisdictions across South Florida lined the streets surrounding the hospital and the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office for the procession.
The biggest turnout as anticipated was from the Miami-Dade Police Department. Miami-Dade officers on foot, motorcycles and mounted patrol were part of the moving procession.
Sky 10 was above the area as Miami-Dade Fire Rescue raised the American flag with two ladder trucks.
Other officers who paid their respects to Echaverry included ones from Coral Gables, Doral, Medley, Miami-Dade Schools, West Miami, South Miami, the Broward Sheriff’s Office, and others.
Fire chiefs from the city of Miami and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue were also present for the procession, along with some civilians.
“I feel I had to be here,” civilian Paulette Darod said. “I felt it as they was marching, coming up 10th Ave., you could see it in their face. Any citizen who calls the police, they should be here as well.”
Officers saluted as their fallen brother’s body passed them on the route along Northwest 10th Avenue before the procession concluded at the office of the medical examiner.
Echaverry was on duty with the department’s robbery intervention detail when a suspect shot him in the head on Monday night in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood.
Echaverry was born on Dec. 8, 1992, in Hialeah. He played baseball while he was a student at John A. Ferguson Senior High School near the Kendall West neighborhood and for the Nicaraguan baseball league’s La Alcaldia Municipal de Diriá team, in Granada.
Echaverry returned to South Florida to study criminal justice at Miami Dade College and Florida International University. He joined MDPD in 2017 and had just marked his fifth anniversary with the department in April.
Echaverry served in the South District before he was promoted to the MDPD’s robbery bureau. He played softball with the Miami-Dade Five-O, Metro Dawgs, and the Enforcers teams, and he was a regular of the Virginia Key Trails.
Echaverry is survived by his parents, Sandra and Cesar Echaverry, and his sister, Sandra Virginia.
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