Last July, police from San Antonio drove to Dallas to cover for officers attending funerals for those killed in the downtown ambush.
A year later, about 20 Dallas cops are returning the favor, lending a hand to a department that will bury one of its own Friday.
Officer Miguel I. Moreno was killed last week while responding to a call about a suspicious person. Moreno’s colleague was wounded in the shootout, and the gunman was killed.
For the Dallas officers, the bus ride to San Antonio is a way to give back to a department that stood by the Dallas Police Department when it was grieving last year.
“We wanted to repay them for what they did for us,” said Frederick Frazier, the first vice president of the Dallas Police Association.
The Dallas cops will wear their own uniforms but will patrol the city in San Antonio police cars. They will answers calls just as they would in Dallas.
Frazier, a San Antonio native, said he wanted to be there, too, but will have to stay in Dallas because he’s scheduled to work.
“It’s just disturbing that this is the direction that our society has gone,” he said, referring to Moreno’s slaying.
The Dallas Police Association also plans to pay it forward by helping the family of a New York police officer who was shot and killed in an ambush Wednesday while she sat in a mobile command post.
Frazier said the police association will donate $2,500 to the New York-based Tunnel to Towers Foundation to help the family of NYPD Officer Miosotis Familia with their housing needs.
Tunnel to Towers did the same for the families of the slain DART and Dallas officers last year.