A Touching Farewell for Fallen Police Officer

Seven-year-old Grant Garton and his 12-year-old brother, Garrett, saw their father buried Friday.

They walked behind his flag-draped coffin as the wail of bagpipes pierced the air and a hundred police officers stood saluting their dad.

Rossmoor resident and Hawthorne police Officer Andrew Scott Garton, 44, was laid to rest at Forest Lawn in Cypress following a dramatic funeral service and a motorcade that drew hundreds of police officers in patrol cars and motorcycles. Instead of a hearse, Garton's coffin rode in the armored SWAT team vehicle he once served in.

Garton's death last week shook the law enforcement community.

On Friday, a more intimate portrait of the man emerged as friends and family remembered his life during services at SeaCoast Grace Church in Cypress.

A caring father and father figure

Speaker after speaker recalled how much Garton adored his wife and children. He took his young sons fishing, played baseball with them and--during a temporary separation from his wife, Tracy--still stopped by every night to join them for dinner and tuck the boys into bed, Pastor Larry Acosta said.

Garrett, his oldest son, wrote a letter that was read aloud during the memorial: “I promise to take care of my brother and teach him everything that you taught me. I will take care of my family because that is what you did and taught me to do. Even though I don’t know why God took you away, I still believe in the Lord.”

Garton, who went through the police academy at age 36, was a father figure to many of the younger officers who served with him.

The protective mentor role is one that came naturally, said his younger cousin Eric Motley.

As a scrawny 7-year-old, Motley struggled to play baseball, and it was Garton who wouldn’t let him quit, Motley recalled. Instead, Garton taught his cousin to play catcher, explaining that the padding would protect him, and the key position would allow even the littlest player to control the game. Years later, when Motley crashed his father’s truck, it was Garton who took the blame.

Likewise in the police academy, Garton looked after struggling cadets, said Hawthorne police Officer Todd Kusserow.

“He took it upon himself to deflect attention from the other recruits,” said Kusserow. One day, academy officials were browbeating a cadet who struggled to keep up with the pack during a run, so Garton pretended to trip off the path and rolled dramatically down the hillside, Kusserow recalled.

“He just dove off the road. He was somersaulting down the hill, hitting every rock,” said Kusserow. “That was him.”

'We've got you covered'

But Garton was as playful as he was protective.

“He was the only recruit I ever knew of who was kicked out of the academy for laughing,” Kusserow said.

A giggling fit when someone tickled him during a training session was enough for academy officials to boot him from the program, but the Hawthorne Police Department insisted he be taken back.

It worked out well for the department. In seven short years, Garton became one of the most trusted and well-liked officers, earning a spot on the board of the police officers association, said Kusserow.

“He fought for the little guy. He fought for the younger ones. He fought for the rank and file,” Kusserow said.

His example won’t soon be forgotten by fellow officers, many of whom pledged to repay it to Garton’s children. From learning how to bat to going on that first date, fellow officers will be there to help Grant and Garrett through life’s milestones, Kusserow promised.

“I know 100 dads who are good at all those things. We’ve got you covered,” he said. “I want you both to know that the world is yours.”

During the service, Pastor Acosta also read a letter from Garton's wife: "Losing you is the hardest thing I have ever had to face in my life – you mean the world to me. Our boys know you love them. You said it to them and showed it to them every day of their lives."

Outside the church

While hundreds of police officers, state officials, friends and family poured into the church, a smattering of officers stayed outside.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Gary Current came to honor Garton but couldn’t bring himself to go inside the church.

“I have been a policeman for 22 years. I haven’t kept track, but I think I’ve probably been to 20 or 30 of these things," he said. "I just get tired of acting like I am not crying. I get tired of being the tough cop, tired of standing here acting like I am not balling inside."

Even when the fallen officer is  a stranger, it’s an emotional experience to see the grieving families and to think of the funerals for all the officers you’ve known, Current added.

At the last service he attended, Current was seated next to the officer’s widow and children.

“I didn’t know him, but I cried through the whole thing. It gets harder every time. When you are younger, you are invincible. You’re bulletproof; it could never happen to you. But the more funerals you go to, the more meaningful they become,” Current said. “I won’t go inside, but I am here to show my support. We all come show our support because we know they would do the same for us.”

To read more about Officer Garton's life, .