Tributes paid to police officer Eric Talley after mass shooting in Colorado leaves 10 dead

Eric Talley had wanted to move to a less dangerous job
Eric Talley was the first officer on the scene
AP
Luke O'Reilly23 March 2021

The US police officer killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Colorado had seven children and had been looking for a new job in order to protect his family, his father said.

Officer Eric Talley was gunned down after responding to the shooting in Boulder, Colorado, that left nine others dead. The police officer was the first to the King Soopers grocery store, Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said, calling his intervention "heroic."

A suspect, injured in the violence, was arrested and remains in police custody.

Officer Talley, 51, had joined the police just over a decade ago and had been looking to eventually find a new line of work, his father Homer said in a statement issued to local media.

US-CRIME-SHOOTING
Law enforcement personnel salute as the motorcade carrying fallen Boulder Police officer Eric Talley exits the King Soopers grocery store
AFP via Getty Images

"He was looking for a job to keep himself off of the front lines and was learning to be a drone operator. He didn't want to put his family through something like this," Homer Talley said.

"He had seven children. The youngest is seven-years-old. He loved his kids and his family more than anything."

Amid an outpouring of grief, a man named Jeremy Herko who said he'd met Officer Talley at "the academy," described him as one of his best friends.

"He was a devout Christian, he had to buy a 15-passenger van to haul all his kids around, and he was the nicest guy in the world," Mr Herko wrote in a Facebook post.

The Boulder Police Department tweeted a photo of Officer Talley in uniform. "Rest In peace Officer Eric Talley. Your service will never be forgotten," the department said.

Officer Talley was featured in a 2013 article as one of three police officers who helped save ducks stuck in a drainage ditch.

He waded into calf-deep water to rescue the ducks from the pipes, according to the article in the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

Officer Talley is the sixth on-duty death in the Boulder Police Department's history and the first officer killed in the line of duty since 1994, the Boulder Daily Camera reported.

"He was, by all accounts, one of the outstanding officers at the Boulder Police Department and his life was cut far too short," said Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney.

The bloodshed in Boulder marked the second deadly US mass shooting in a week, following gun violence last week that left eight people dead in the wider Atlanta area. A 21-year-old man has been charged with those killings.

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