Community pays respect to Arlington officer at police headquarters
ARLINGTON (CBSNewsTexas.com) - The search continues tonight for the driver of a car that ran over an Arlington Police officer who was on his motorcycle heading to work and died from his injuries.
That officer has been identified as Darrin McMichael, a nearly 25-year veteran whose sudden death has hit the Arlington Police Department hard.
Mark Beseda became a police officer in Grand Prairie not long after Darrin McMichael joined the force in Arlington.
This evening he paid his respects, along with his 5-year-old daughter, to his fallen brother in blue at a memorial outside Arlington Police headquarters.
"It affects all of us police officers and citizens, it affects everybody," said Beseda. "There's police officers at her school, so they know what it means. This is the least we can do is come by."
What started out as a routine ride into work ended tragically for McMichael on I-20 early this morning, when his motorcycle hit the back of an SUV throwing him onto a busy traffic lane.
"Motorcycle bumped the back of the expedition," Douglas Sisk, with the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, said. "[The] rider fell off onto the left-hand side."
The Dallas County Sheriff's Office says McMichael was then run over by someone driving a dark-colored Chrysler or Dodge sedan who didn't stop.
Arlington Police Chief Alexander Jones, expressed the pain his department is going through after his officers escorted the body in a procession from the hospital to the medical examiner's office
White Settlement Police Chief Chris Cook posted photos with McMichael when they worked together in Arlington and said he is heartbroken.
"Please, please, turn yourself in," said Jones. "We are hurting as an organization and we need closure. And I ask, anybody that seen anything on the highway this morning, please contact the DCSO."
The Dallas County Sheriff's Office is overseeing the investigation.
Because he was driving into work this will be considered an on-duty death.
Perhaps the worst part of all this is that McMichael's wife, who is also an Arlington officer, was driving into work behind him and witnessed what happened.