KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Missouri police officer slain during a traffic stop was eulogized Saturday as an optimistic man who always prized law enforcement, with the state’s governor pressing mourners to appreciate the perils of police in a culture “too quick to condemn” them.
“My brother’s dream job was being a police officer,” said Chris Michael, standing behind brother Gary Lee Michael Jr.’s flag-draped casket.
Republican Gov. Eric Greitens and hundreds of others packed a convention center in western Missouri’s Clinton, the 9,000-resident town where the officer was gunned down on Aug. 6.
Investigators say Gary Michael, 37, had stopped a car for a traffic violation when the driver fatally shot him and sped away. The suspect, Ian McCarthy of Clinton, was captured after a two-day manhunt.
McCarthy, who authorities say was wounded in the gunfire exchange with Michael, is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf Friday, and he remains jailed.
During Saturday’s funeral, Chris Michael said his brother had a “passionate, optimistic view of life” and “a servant heart.”
When Gary Michael was 16, his brother recalled, he went to the Clinton police station and had “his first interview,” telling officers, ” ‘You guys have car chases sometimes, and during those maybe you need somebody to help you out.
” ‘I got a fast car, you know, and maybe I could help. Maybe I could be a pursuit specialist,’ ” Chris Michael quoted his brother as saying then.
Gary Michael — an Army veteran and former car salesman — was the first police officer killed in the line of duty in Clinton, 75 miles southeast of Kansas City.
