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“I’m super proud of him. And he died in what he liked, with his boots on. He loved his job, he loved the police. He liked what he did.”
This was stated yesterday, when leaving the Institute of Forensic Sciences (ICF), Doña Maria Luisa Díaz, Mother of the state police Luis Marrero Diaz, who was killed Monday afternoon while chasing a criminal on Green Island, in which Carolina Municipal Police officers Luis Salaman Conde and Eliezer Hernandez Cartagena were also shot dead.
Diaz offered her statements after going through the painful process of identifying her son’s body at the ICF, where she went accompanied by her granddaughter Jheylimar, the eldest of Agent Marrero Diaz’s three daughters.
Moments earlier, as he entered the building, though he remained strong, he was heard to say to the officers accompanying him, “If I fall, they will lift me up.”
Like Díaz and his granddaughter, the families of agents Salaman Comte and Hernández Cartagena went through the identification process at the ICF at some point yesterday, while at the same time carrying out arrangements with funeral homes for the vigil and burial of the officers.
A fourth family also had to go to the ICF yesterday to identify their relative, the man who appeared murdered with a sign accusing him of being the killer of the police, in facts that are still being investigated if are or are not related to the aftermath of criminal events that ended the lives of the three agents.
“He was very good. Thank God,” Diaz said of his son, reiterating the pride he felt for him.
He said he enjoyed sports, and in particular, baseball. “He was a player. He played from the age of three, all categories, to the Double A. He played with Cidra, Comerío, Florida, Vega Alta, and I’m not sure if with Manatí as well,” he said. “He loved sports, and when the old men went to play, he was missing one, they would call home ‘Luisito, come on, we’re missing one,’ and he would come down.”
“And he was always on the courts with the girls too. Always. He was one of those parents present in the girls’ sports,” added Lt. Milery Mendez, who studied with Officer Marrero. Diaz and also shared with him at the Police Academy.
“That’s right. Practice having the girls, here was the father,” the state agent’s mother seconded.
“An excellent father, an excellent son. I don’t complain about my son. I haven’t had a complaint in his whole life of anyone from him, from anyone,” he insisted. “I’m super proud of him.”
He also commented that Marrero Díaz, who “was the son of two public servants, a firefighter and a teacher,” spent his time helping other people.
“More than proud to be a police officer, I feel very proud of the human being that the Lord allowed me to create. He was a tremendous human being. Always helping others, helping in pain,” he added. “About three months ago, the boy was killed by a neighbor, and he was the one in charge of everything, coming to Forensic Sciences, escorting him with his motorbike, all the burial, he did everything. He was given the service. “