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‘The World Lost A Great Soul’: Boulder Community Floods Slain Police Officer’s Car With Flowers

(Screenshot/Twitter/Public - user:@boulderpolice)

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The patrol vehicle of police officer Eric Talley, the policeman slain in the Boulder shooting, has been turned into a memorial where community members have been laying flowers.

The city residents and people from outside Boulder, touched by Talley’s heroism, have been visiting the memorial with the officer’s SUV in front of Boulder Police Department’s (BPD) headquarters since Monday night, according to WFAA News 8.

A retired San Jose Police officer Gary Hirata reportedly left a San Jose PD patch on the hood of Talley’s SUV. “If you’re in the police business long enough you’re going to see some tragedies and we’ve experienced that at our police department, so I felt compelled to come here and pay my respects to Officer Talley,” Hirata told WFAA News 8.

Talley, 51, was the first police officer to respond to a 9-1-1 call for the mass shooting in a Boulder grocery store. (RELATED: ‘An American Hero’: Biden Praises The Police Officer Killed In Boulder Grocery Store Shooting)

“The world lost a great soul,” Homer Talley, officer Talley’s father, told the New York Times. “He was a devoted father — seven kids. The youngest was 7 and the oldest was 20, and his family was the joy of his life.”

“He wanted to serve people. And you know, all kids want to be a policeman, and in many ways, he was a big kid,” Talley’s father added.