Watch Funeral for Fallen Mass. State Police Trooper

By Will Katcher

Source masslive.com

Thousands of law enforcement officers from across New England, government officials, and family and friends of Massachusetts State Police Trooper Tamar Bucci turned out to a Revere church Wednesday to remember the trooper, their fallen “sister,” killed in a line-of-duty car crash last week.

With eulogies from state police Col. Christopher Mason and Bucci’s stepfather, and with Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov Karyn Polito and Attorney General Maura Healey in attendance, congregants paid tribute to the 34-year-old trooper killed just 20 months into her police career.

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The funeral came five days after a tanker truck struck Bucci’s cruiser as she pulled over to assist a driver on the side of Interstate 93 in Stoneham. She was pulled from the cruiser and treated on scene before being taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

After the service, the crowd stood silently in the frigid cold outside Saint Anthony of Padua Church during a state police ceremony for the departed trooper. As snowflakes began to fall on the North Shore, a gun salute to honor Bucci jolted attendees and onlookers to attention. A bagpipe crooned “Amazing Grace,” a bugler played Taps, a state police trooper escorted a symbolic riderless horse through the church parking lot, and a state police helicopter hummed low over the crowd.

Bucci was the “very picture of quiet confidence and great promise,” Mason said in his tribute to the deceased trooper.

“To Tamar, you clearly met the challenge” of the State Police, Mason said. “I say well done. Tamar, we pledge with broken hearts but with resolute dedication to build upon your legacy and use it as inspiration to build a better and safer world.”

In the crowd of law enforcement officers were uniforms from every New England state. Police arrived by bus from municipal police departments across Massachusetts. A two-story American flag hung from a Boston fire truck over the crowd, fluttering in the wind.

Mason in his eulogy reflected on a speech he gave less than two years prior on May 6, 2020, the day Bucci graduated from the State Police Academy. The graduation ceremony, outdoor at Gillette Stadium in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, was the setting of the photo of Bucci that the State Police released following her death.

“As I thought about what to say today, I kept thinking about that picture,” Mason said. “You’ve no doubt seen the picture, a smiling Tamar stands in front of the field.”

“I know now from her sisters that the photo was taken on the day that Tamar described as one of the proudest of her life,” the colonel continued. “I knew that Tamar was exactly the type of trooper we needed for the times.”

In his speech at the 2020 graduation, Mason spoke to Bucci and her classmates of “the responsibility to serve, to place the needs of others in front of their own, to selflessly assist those who are vulnerable, those who are victims or survivors, those who are in need,” he said. “It was obvious that a stellar career, marked by achievement and increasing levels of responsibility in rank and leadership awaited her.”

A group of Bucci’s classmates from the State Police Academy’s 85 Recruit Training Troop — all women — acted as pallbearers, carrying the casket into the church just as they did for Bucci’s wake the day before. They joined their fallen companion’s family and friends in the pews alongside state police command staff and members of the Brookfield and Medford Barracks, where the trooper served. The service was conducted by Father Paul Clifford, a member of the state police’s Chaplain Corps. Bucci’s two sisters also gave biblical readings.

In his eulogy, Bucci’s stepfather, Jim Burditt, recalled the “angel” and “wonderful” person now “protecting all of us from above.”

Burditt reflected on Bucci’s “special connection to spirituality” — something he said she felt “deep within her soul” while speaking at the Revere church.

When the family gathered to write Bucci’s obituary last week, Burditt said the lights in the room keep flickering on and off.

“We knew that she was there with us,” he said. Bucci’s badge number — No. 4440 — is an angel number, Burditt explained, saying it has special meaning in many religions and cultures and means “a most positive light, I have arrived and my time has come.”

While Bucci had her moments of seriousness — she was known as the “Ice Queen” in the gym, and fellow exercisers knew not to bother her in the sacred space — she “wasn’t always incredibly intense,” Burditt said. “She could make light of any situation.”

“Tam was the one at the at family gatherings that had everyone laughing — whether it was a witty one-liner or a silly gag gift,” Burditt said, remembering her tendency to treat life “like a comedy skit.”

When she graduated from the state police academy, Bucci purchased a personal handgun, and engraved on it a quote from Pam Beesly, a character in the television show, “The Office”: “I feel God in this Chili’s tonight.”

“It’s just one peek into who she was: quirky, silly, physically strong and absolutely gorgeous,” Burditt said.

Born March 2, 1988 in Melrose, Bucci was raised in Andover, where she graduated high school. She was a graduate of Middlesex Community College and 2020 graduate of the State Police Academy, an accomplishment that left her beaming with pride in the outdoor graduation ceremony at Gillette Stadium, her family remembered in an obituary.

Bucci, a Woburn resident, drew people in with a “magnetic energy” and would make others feel at ease with a “radiating smile and playful sense of humor,” the obituary stated.

The morning after she was killed, Patrick McNamara, vice president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, said, “Trooper Bucci is not just a coworker to us. She is our sister and we are heartbroken by this devastating loss to our membership.”

She was the 22nd state trooper killed in the line of duty.

“We pledge to never forget Tamar and her sacrifice,” Mason said.

Bucci aspired to become a state trooper from an early age but pursued other career paths, including personal training, before enrolling in the academy.

In a 2018 Facebook post, Assembly Sports Club in Somerville said Bucci, an employee there, was running the Marine Corps Marathon that October to raise money for wounded and injured veterans through the Semper Fi Fund.

“This is definitely going to be a huge challenge for me,” said Bucci, who in the social media post called herself much more of a bodybuilder than a runner. But she added, “Gotta push outside of your comfort zone right!?”

When Bucci entered the state police academy, she knew it would be a challenge, especially as a woman in an overwhelmingly male field, her family said in the obituary. Bucci’s class, the 85th Recruit Training Troop, was the first for which women were not required to cut their hair. Bucci did so anyway, taking off 15 inches in the first week of the program.

“Anyone [who] knew Tamar knew this was a huge sacrifice,” the obituary said. “It was at this point that her family knew nothing was going to stop her from becoming a Massachusetts State Trooper.”

When she graduated from the academy in front of an empty Gillette Stadium, Bucci was beaming as she accomplished “her greatest dream,” her family said. She began her service at the Leominster Barracks, before being transferred first to the Brookfield Barracks and then to the Medford Barracks.

She wore badge number 4440 and was a member of the Division of Field Services, the state police’s patrol division.

After her death last week, condolences poured in from public officials, state representatives, and local police and fire departments across Massachusetts offering their support to Bucci’s family and her colleagues in the state police.

“There is no greater sacrifice than giving your life in service of others,” Gov. Charlie Baker said. “Trooper Tamar Bucci embodied the best of the Massachusetts State Police, and her loss is devastating to her loved ones, the Commonwealth and her brothers and sisters in blue. Our sincere and heartfelt thoughts are with Trooper Bucci’s family during this heartbreaking time.”

The governor ordered flags at state buildings to be flown at half-staff in her honor.

Bucci is survived by her mother and stepfather, Maral and Jim Burditt; her father Anthony Bucci; her sister and brother-in-law, Talena and Andrew Lange; her sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece, Karissa, Brian, Landon and Lenna Holmes; half-brother Dante Bucci and step-siblings Laney and Troy Burditt; grandmothers Rosemarie Keefe and Aroussiak Dakessian; aunt and uncle Mary and Dave Geaslen; aunt and uncle Susan and Toros Vosbigian; aunt Silva Dakessian; and many close cousins, her obituary said._____

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