EULESS, Texas -- Senior police officer David Hofer’s Facebook page is filled with photos of his fiancee, Marta Danylyk, showing the young couple’s excitement at a promising future.
Those dreams ended in gunfire Tuesday afternoon at J.A. Carr Park in Euless.
On Wednesday morning, several Euless officers wiped away tears as they talked with their fellow officers in the department parking lot about their slain comrade, who had been with the Euless department for about two years, after serving in the New York Police Department from 2009 to 2014.
“David truly enjoyed helping people and led with a servant’s heart,” Euless Lt. Wayne Pavlik said in an email. Pavilk commands the patrol division where Hofer worked in Euless.
“If you had the fortunate opportunity to meet him, you would have found him to be [a] very warm and cheerful individual who would go out of his way to help anyone,” Pavlik wrote.
Hofer and other officers responded to a shooting call at the park Tuesday afternoon and encountered a gunman who fired at them. Police shot the man, identified by family members as Jorge Brian Gonzalez. Hofer was wounded and died in surgery in a Grapevine hospital.
“He was a wonderful child, a wonderful police officer,” his mother, Sofija Hofer, told the New York Post.
Hofer had come to Texas to be a patrol officer in a safer place, she said.
Hofer’s Facebook page, still up on Wednesday, has a photo of the officer on one knee, proposing to Danylyk in January 2015. Another photo shows him enjoying food at a festival with Danylyk in June 2014.
Collin County court records indicate they bought a house in November 2015.
“He was so brave,” his mother told the Post, noting that her son wanted to write a book about his NYPD experience.
Condolences and prayers from across the nation poured into the department through the evening Tuesday and all day Wednesday.
Pavlik called Hofer an exceptional police officer, person and friend to everyone in the police department and community.
He had received eight commendation letters as a patrol officer.
“David had an outstanding investigative people skills, was extremely intuitive, and was an officer who exemplified our profession,” the police lieutenant said.
His mother told the Post that Hofer had wanted to be a police officer since he was a boy.
He was the son of European immigrants, graduated from St. Ann’s High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., and earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University in 2008.
He last was on duty in New York in Manhattan’s Ninth Precinct. Within hours of Hofer’s death, officers from the Ninth Precinct sent condolences via Twitter.
Copyright 2016 the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Tribune News Service
