During his 21 years in law enforcement, Cpl. Wayne Curry hasn't worried much about the approach of strangers.

The Texas officer, like anyone who wears a badge, said he has had his share of run-ins with those who harbor a dislike of the police. But when people have stepped up to him, he said, it is "more likely they want to buy me dinner."

Curry is now thinking twice. He spoke as he watched over a crowd of about 1,500 people gathered at an impromptu memorial at a gas station in a Houston suburb, where an on-duty officer from a neighboring department in Harris County near Houston was gunned down Friday in an apparently unprovoked attack while fueling his car.

"This was an ambush, a coward that took advantage," Curry told the Los Angeles Times.