Coral Gables Police: Fallen in the Line of Duty

The names of fallen Coral Gables police and firefighters will be etched on a new memorial.

Last May, in a moving ceremony at City Hall, Sgt. Gordon Dickinson — a 28-year-veteran of the Coral Gables Police Department — received something called the Robert DeKorte Memorial Award. The award is named after Robert P. DeKorte, who was 45 when he was fatally shot in 1972. He was responding to an armed robbery call at a liquor store on South Dixie Highway, where two suspects opened fire, striking him in the neck. DeKorte actually grabbed onto the suspects, holding them long enough for officers to chase them down, killing one and arresting the other.

“I explain the circumstances of that tragic event as a reminder that evil people enter our city and commit horrible crimes,” said Officer Chris Challenger, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, who presented the award to Sgt. Dickinson. “In a split second, lives can change forever. Nothing is guaranteed.”

Challenger went on to describe how Sgt. Dickinson had responded to “an eerily similar call” in July of 2022, where two armed suspects had just killed an innocent 67-year-old man. Dickinson astutely led and coordinated the pursuit of the two suspects, resulting in their arrests. Upon receiving the award, Sgt. Dickinson — already twice named Office of the Year of the CGPD — accepted it with gracious humility, saying that the award should go to all his colleagues and co-workers.

The sergeant then went on to describe the travails of his career, which began after he attended the police academy. He was the only officer from the CGPD in a class of about 50 cadets. He recalled a running joke that “for the rest of my career, I was going to be helping get cats out of trees here in Coral Gables.” It didn’t exactly turn out that way, though cat removal was part of it.

“During my career, I’ve managed to catch burglars, robbers, and murderers. I’ve been spit on, slapped, punched, kicked, and bitten…. I’ve had people twice my size throw haymakers. I’ve had people try to run me over with their cars. I’ve had people pull machetes and guns on me…. I’ve responded to rapes, suicides, homicides. I’ve been called every four-letter word imaginable.” But, he said, “I didn’t give what Robert DeKorte gave, because he made the ultimate sacrifice.”

Those who did give their lives while on the job in Coral Gables are now being memorialized with a new sculpture going up in front of the Public Safety Building. They include officers like Francis Cyril Guest, who died directing traffic on Christmas Day, 1928, when he was run down by a drunk driver. He was 41. Or Homer Collins Barton, 37, who was killed in 1938 by a shotgun blast as he stood on a front porch in Coconut Grove. Or Constable Luther T. Hardison, who was shot and killed in 1951 by a young man he was driving from Los Angeles to Coral Gables to face burglary and auto theft charges.

DeKorte, Guest, Barton, and Hardison are four of nine Coral Gables police officers who died in the line of duty since the city’s founding in 1925. Their names, along with those of three Gables firefighters and a University of Miami detective who also died while on the job, will be inscribed on the granite base of a 10-foot memorial sculpture scheduled to be installed this year in the plaza at the entrance of the downtown Public Safety Building.

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 226 police officers were killed in the line of duty in the U.S. last year, including nine in Florida. While Coral Gables has not lost an officer while on the job since 1980, the dangers of the profession are ever-present. “The one thing that keeps me up at night is the safety of my officers,” says CGPD Chief Ed Hudak. “For anyone who has ever been a cop and heard that emergency tone, it’s always there. It’s the kinship of what doing this job is about.”

The stories of each of the Coral Gables officers who died on the job are singularly tragic and unique. Eight of those stories are recounted in “Forgotten Heroes: Police Officers Killed in Coral Gables and South Miami, 1928-1994,” by William Wilbanks and Alan Headley. Six of the officers died by gunfire; two were killed in traffic. The following are brief summaries of how each of the officers died.

Francis Cyril Guest, 1887-1928

Sgt. Guest joined the fledgling Coral Gables Police Department in 1926, just a year after it and the city were established. He was a two-year veteran and recently promoted when he became the first Coral Gables officer to be killed in the line of duty. Guest was directing traffic at the intersection of Alhambra Circle and Douglas Road after firefighters had worked a blaze nearby and a firetruck was blocking part of the roadway.

At about 7:15 pm on Dec. 25, a speeding car driven by Herman B. Dove, 23, struck Guest with such force that he was hurled over the hood of the fire truck. The Illinois native was killed instantly. Dove, who admitted he had been drinking, later told police that he knew Guest and that the officer “was like a brother to me.” He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and, in 1929, was sentenced to two years in prison.

Homer Collins Barton, 1901-1938

Barton, 37, was attempting to serve a search warrant on June 6, 1938, when he was felled by a shotgun fired from a house across the street from the porch on which he was standing in Coconut Grove. A partner rushed Barton to the hospital, where he died minutes later. Barton was a native of Alabama, where he played high school football.

In 1933, he survived a stabbing inflicted by a prisoner he was transporting to jail. He was survived by his wife, Helen, and a three-year-old daughter. A 32-year-old man, Frizell McLaren, was arrested and found guilty of first-degree murder in Barton’s death in 1938. He was executed in the Florida’s electric chair three years later.

Luther T. Hardison, 1896-1951

Hardison was an elected Florida constable in a district that included Coral Gables when, in 1951, he volunteered to drive to Los Angeles in his new Mercury sedan and take custody of a prisoner wanted here on burglary and auto theft charges. Hardison, 55, told colleagues that the trip would give him a chance to visit his son, serving in the military in Texas. Hardison picked up Harris Mullis, 22, in mid-February and the two set off for Florida.

On Feb. 16, during what may have been a change of drivers on the highway west of Mobile, AL, Mullis grabbed Hardison’s .38 caliber revolver from under the seat and shot the constable in the head. Mullis dumped the body in a ditch and abandoned the car in New Orleans. The slaying sparked a nationwide manhunt and a deluge of tabloid publicity, and Mullis was captured five days later in New York City.

Convicted of first-degree murder, Mullis died in prison in 1988. Hardison was survived by his wife, Thelma, who was named to replace him as District 3 constable, and four children. The constable system was abolished in Florida in 1973.

Billy Howard Stephens, 1931-1957

Stephens, a 26-year-old motorcycle officer, along with his partner and close friend Jack Harris, were escorting the Coral Gables High football team to a Friday night game in west Miami-Dade County on Nov. 22, 1957, when they approached the intersection of Southwest 77th Avenue and Waterway Drive.

There, the driver of a 1953 Chevrolet station wagon made an illegal left turn and smashed head-on into the officers on their bikes. Stephens, suffering from extensive head injuries, was taken to Doctors’ Hospital, where he underwent hours of surgery, but died the next morning. He left his wife, Roberta, and an infant daughter.

Harris was treated for a fractured wrist and multiple cuts. Police recommended that the car’s driver, Edward L. Jones, 35, be charged with failure to yield the right-of-way and making an illegal left turn. The disposition of the case is unknown.

Walter Franklin Stathers, 1921-1967

Of the eight cases in which a Coral Gables police officer has been killed in the line of duty, only one remains an unsolved mystery. Stathers, 46, was shot and killed, likely with his own gun, the week before Christmas 1967 after he responded to a prowler call in a residential neighborhood east of US-1. Fellow officer James Harley — who would later become Coral Gables police chief — found Stathers’ squad car, engine running, driver’s door open, and wedged up against a house at 700 South Alhambra Circle. Stathers, a 14-year department veteran, was face-down on the lawn.

More than 55 years after his death, Stathers’ unsolved murder continues to haunt the Coral Gables Police Department. “I think about it all the time,” says Chief Hudak. Coral Gables Magazine wrote about the unsolved Stathers murder in the December 2018 issue.

Robert P. Dekorte, 1926-1972

DeKorte was working the day shift on Jan. 21, 1972, assigned to checking vacant houses of vacationers. He did not have to respond to the robbery alarm at the Happiness Boys Liquor Store, but he sped there in time to confront two men attempting to flee with $1,500 in cash.

Both were armed, and both fired at the officer in the doorway. One slug hit DeKorte in the neck. Arriving officers pursued the robbers, shooting and killing one man hiding nearby. The second, 17-year-old Raymond Bradley, was arrested by Miami police later that day. Now 69, Bradley is still behind bars at Dade Correctional Institution, serving a life sentence.

DeKorte, a popular and well-known 19-year veteran, left his wife Ruth, along with three children. The annual Police Benevolent Association award given to an officer exhibiting courage and dedication on the job bears DeKorte’s name.

Louis Pena, 1936-1978

On patrol with his K-9 partner, a German Shepherd named Abe, Pena was shot and killed after making a routine traffic stop within blocks of the police station. With another officer parked nearby, Pena waited in his squad car for a radio response about the registration of a 1977 Chevrolet Camaro he had stopped on Almeria Avenue for a traffic violation. The car turned out to be stolen.

One of the two men in the car, Manuel Valle, 27, walked up to Pena’s open window and fired one shot into his neck, and then turned the gun on Officer Gary Spell, sitting in his police car across the street. Spell survived his wounds, but Pena died 90 minutes later at Coral Gables Hospital.

Valle and his companion were arrested two days later in Deerfield Beach. Barely a month after the shooting, Valle was tried and convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. After 33 years on death row, he was executed by lethal injection in September 2011.

Alfred William Terrinoni, 1942-1980

Sgt. Terrinoni, 38, was working an off-duty job, picking up the night deposits from a restaurant at Dadeland Mall on Oct. 11, 1980, when he was approached by four armed robbers, all teenagers. When he refused to give up the pouch containing $4,800, the former Hialeah High School football star was shot three times, including once in the chest. He died at South Miami Hospital barely an hour later. A well-respected 16-year police veteran, Terrinoni was survived by his longtime partner, Emily, his parents, and two brothers.

Terrinoni’s four assailants were arrested within two days of the slaying. Two of the suspects were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.Two others were freed after serving a little more than two years in prison.

Robert Harry Bonnet, 1944-1992

Bonnet, a 13-year veteran of the Gables Police Department, suffered a fatal heart attack on January 17, 1992, while taking part in the department’s prescribed fitness program.
He was 47.

Prior to joining the Coral Gables police, he served with the Dade County School Board Police for four years and the Homestead Police Department for five years. He was survived by his wife, a son, two daughters, his mother, sister, and grandmother.

Michael D. “Mac” Mclane, 1947-2000

McLane, 52, an 18-year veteran of the University of Miami (UM) police department, was killed in May 2000 as he drove home after completing his shift. According to a UM colleague, the detective’s car veered off State Road 878, the Snapper Creek Expressway, and he was ejected from the vehicle. McLane was survived by his wife and a son.

The memorial will also include the names of the following three Gables firefighters:

Lt. Thomas Faison, 1896-1951: One of the original members of the Coral Gables Fire Department, appointed in 1927, Faison died of a heart attack while on duty. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.

Lt. Herman “Woody” Brice, Jr., 1960-2002: Brice, the son of a veteran firefighter in Palm Beach County, became a Coral Gables firefighter in 1980. He died on duty at the age of 41 due to a heart-related issue. He was survived by his wife and one son.

Firefighter Timothy Walsh, 1961-2014: Walsh joined the Coral Gables Fire Department in 2001 and served for 13 years before dying of cancer. He was 52. He was survived by his wife and four children.

Eternal Vigilance: A Memorial to Fallen First Responders

The next piece of public art to be unveiled in Coral Gables is a 10-foot, aqua blue memorial to fallen first responders that city officials hope will serve as an invitation for quiet contemplation.

“For me, personally, it’s a very elegant and respectful piece,” says Catherine Cathers, speaking of “Eternal Vigilance,” the artwork to be installed in the plaza in front of the Public Safety Building. “In addition to being a memorial, it definitely marks a place of reflection and contemplation,” said Cathers, who administers the city’s Art in Public Places program. The work is scheduled for installation by the end of the year.

Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton of Houston’s RE:site Studio were commissioned to design the memorial after being chosen by the Arts Advisory Panel and other city representatives from more than 140 applicants. They collaborated with Police Chief Ed Hudak and Fire Chief Marcos De La Rosa to come up with a piece that combines interwoven planes of glass to represent flames within a vessel, as in the old lanterns once used by police and firefighters, said Lee.

Water flows up underneath the sculpture, streaming into a thin veil over a granite base etched with the names of fallen responders. At night, LED lighting within the pool illuminates the interwoven flames inside the artwork to produce “a dynamic flickering effect,” according to the city’s website. In designing public artworks, says Lee, the aim is to come up with “art that is embraced right away and grows in meaning.” The cost of the memorial, including installation, was $525,000.

Lee and Allbritton have recently been acclaimed for their memorial on the campus of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, dedicated to 19 slaves who freed themselves during the War of 1812. Lee was also a finalist in the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition.