Detective work finds forgotten grave of fallen Miami police rookie. We owe him that much | Editorial

Policing in America, from Miami to Minneapolis, is under scrutiny — and should be.

But one thing that police critics and supporters should agree on is that being an officer of the law is a dangerous crapshoot of a job that sometimes snatches one’s life away. That’s a tragic event. Period.

That’s what happened on Sept. 2, 1981, to Nathaniel Broom, a 23-year-old Black Miami police officer killed in Overtown as he chased three robbery suspects.

Though given a hero’s funeral, in the past 40 years, the location of Broom’s gravesite had been lost, forgotten, misplaced in an unkempt Allapattah cemetery where many Black pioneers are buried.

No more.

That’s because Jerry Lynn Dellamico is a retired Miami police robbery detective who couldn’t stop detecting. She’s the coordinator of a program to honor fallen officers by assigning current officers to place small flags and a badge on their graves.

It’s a thoughtful and heartfelt way to connect the past to the present.

A touching story by Miami Herald reporter Charles Rabin details Dellamico and others’ efforts to find Broom’s grave and spiff it up just as the department is honoring its fallen officers as part of HERO — Honoring Every Resting Officer.

In the early-morning darkness, just before Broom was killed, one suspect, Robert Patton, knelt on the ground, hidden. As Broom came around he shot the officer in the chest.

Broom was also a victim of circumstance.

As the probe into his murder unfolded, questions arose as to why an officer, only nine months on the force, was without a partner during the more-dangerous overnight shift. This was the early 1980’s Miami, just after the McDuffie Riots, the Mariel boatlift and the arrival of “Cocaine Cowboys,” three events that had catapulted Miami into one of its most turbulent and violent times.

Dellamico and her group of workers did a good thing here by correcting a wrong.

Broom’s grave is now marked, painted and adorned at the cemetery.

Broom deserves that much from the city he gave his life to protect.