Tampa PD's Officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis were "spectacular individuals and two of the nicest people you could meet," Officer Whitney McCormick said during a press conference at police headquarters on Tuesday.
The two Tampa PD officers were dedicated to their jobs, communities and their families, three colleagues said during the presser, which appeared on YouTube courtesy of ABC News.
Kocab, a midnight patrol officer, had five years with the department, which hired him from Platte City (Mo.) PD where he was named officer of the year in 2007. Upon arrival in Tampa, Officer Jason Ward got to know the officer better as his field training officer and described Kocab as "a fire breather, a very active officer, very productive."
Officer Dave Curtis has more than three years of patrol experience with Tampa PD and had earned assignment to an elite patrol detail called Rapid Offender Control working in plain clothes.
"It's tragic events like this that make you want to go out there and take guys off the street that do stuff like this," Officer Jeremy Larson said. "If somebody's so brutal and cold-blooded to do something like this to a police officer, who's to say what he's going to do to the average citizen."
