MIAMI GARDENS, Florida (AP) – A dead FBI agent was remembered for her strength, her infectious laughter, her love for family and her commitment to protecting children during a memorial service Saturday.
Officers Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, and Daniel Alfin, 36, were shot Tuesday. while serving a search warrant at the Broward County home of a child pornography suspect. Schwartzenberger’s service was held at the Miami Dolphins football stadium. There will be a separate service for Alfin on Sunday.
“There are no good words to make sense of a loss like this, nor good words for a day like Tuesday or like today,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “There is a heaviness in our hearts and a burden different from any other, because there is nothing more devastating to the FBI family than the loss of an agent in the line of duty.”
Schwartzenberger’s coffin was wrapped in an American flag as he left the field while the bagpipers played. The flag was later folded into a triangle and presented to his Wray family. He was greeted with 21 pistols during the service.
“Laura chose to be part of a team that spends its days in the dark facing the worst parts of humanity. It’s a job with high stress, a high emotional level and great exhaustion,” Wray said of the agent, who was originally from Pueblo, Colorado. “Laura never stopped. I would talk to everyone and everyone about how to protect children from online predators. ”
Federal government officials who attended the service with Wray were acting U.S. Attorney General Monty Wilkinson and President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.
“During her 15 years as an FBI special agent, Laura Schwartzenberger was selfless, tireless, brave, and committed to protecting some of society’s most vulnerable: her children,” Wilkinson said in a statement. .
Sherwood-Randall also praised Schwartzenberger’s service to the nation, calling it “an American hero who dedicated his life to keeping our country, our citizens and, above all, our children safe.”
The shootings marked one of the bloodiest days in FBI history in South Florida and also one of the deadliest nationwide, according to the FBI website. Suspect David Huber, 55, committed suicide before he could be arrested.