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Spree Desha was the kind of police officer that a department longs for. The young LAPD officer who died in the train collision in Southern California will be sorely missed by her co-workers and the city and community she served. The sky was the limit for the young officer taken tragically before her time. Co-workers and managers described Spree as a solid, serious cop, who had begun a steady climb through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Desha, 35, was one of at least 25 fatalities in the head-on collision of a Metrolink commuter train and a freight train. For the hundreds of police officers and firefighters that worked the scene of the crash, the tragedy turned personal as word spread that an officer was among the dead.
Scores of officers stood in two columns along the edge of the wreckage, a makeshift honor guard waiting to salute their fallen sister. Her body was removed from the wreckage on a board covered with an American flag. Fellow officers then gently carried her to an ambulance with military precision and respect. Desha’s badge, said one officer who helped carry her body, was bent almost in half by the force of the crash.
A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was also on the train. He was badly injured, but is expected to survive. As the news of the tragedy spread, officers who had worked with Desha recalled her as someone who just loved being a cop, and that she especially thrived in her role training recruits. “She was uncommonly thoughtful, very intelligent,” Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger told the Los Angeles Times. Desha loved being a street cop.
A seven-year veteran of the department, she worked patrol and narcotics. Her fellow officers said her real love was for her duties as a field training officer. The rookies she worked with described her as “strict, fair and approachable.” She earned 34 formal commendations in her personnel record. In performance evaluations, one supervisor noted that Desha approached a “new assignment with enthusiasm and anticipation.”
Romero and Lt. Maria Acosta, another supervisor, remembered how Desha spearheaded a cancer charity fundraiser in the station. In exchange for pledges, officers shaved their heads in a symbol of solidarity with cancer patients, who often lose their hair as a result of their treatment.
Desha wasn’t one for double standards, and was one of the few women to part with their locks. Before she took the clippers to her head, Romero asked her if she really wanted to take the leap. “She had such beautiful hair. But she didn’t hesitate,” he told the L.A. Times. “She said, ‘I’ll do what the patients do, I’ll deal with it.” Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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