HUNDREDS MOURN SLAIN POLICE INFORMANT FROM PINELLAS

PALM HARBOR - About 800 friends and family members gathered Tuesday
for the funeral service of Rachel Hoffman, the 23-year-old
Countryside High School graduate killed last week while acting as a
confidential police informant.

The crowd was too large for the sanctuary at Temple Ahavat Shalom.
More than 100 extra seats had to be pulled from a side room and set
up in the back.

"I knew there would be a lot," Margie Weiss, Hoffman's mother, told
mourners. "I told them, 'We have to build another sanctuary.'"

Weiss and Hoffman's father, Irv Hoffman, paid tribute to their
daughter during the hourlong service, as did several friends. She was
remembered as gentle and kind, a person with a big smile and a zest for life.

No mention was made of the circumstances surrounding her death - she
was posing as a drug buyer for the Tallahassee Police Department in a
drug sting gone awry.

"To me, this is not a funeral but a celebration of her life," said
Weiss, her voice hoarse from screaming after receiving the news about
her daughter. "As long as I'm alive, my daughter will be alive through me."

A large magnet on his daughter's refrigerator at her Tallahassee
apartment summed up the way she lived her life, Hoffman said.

It reads "Be Alive," and it urges people to think freely, smile
often, tell those you love that you do, rediscover old friends, make
new ones, hope, grow and give.

"She packed a lot of life in her 23 years," a weeping Hoffman said.
"And I wish I was more like her, celebrating life."

After the ceremony, pall bearers carried Hoffman's casket into a
waiting hearse that took her to nearby Curlew Hills cemetery.

Rachel Hoffman's body was found early Friday in rural Taylor County,
southeast of Tallahassee. Police have come under criticism from
family and friends for putting the Florida State University graduate
in a dangerous situation.

At the request of Tallahassee police Chief Dennis Jones, the Florida
attorney general's office is reviewing the events that led to Hoffman's death.

The undercover operation began when Hoffman agreed to work with
police after she was arrested on several drug charges, including
possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and possession with
intent to sell Ecstasy.

She agreed to buy 1,500 Ecstasy pills, 2 ounces of cocaine or crack
cocaine and a gun as part of the police investigation, the
Tallahassee Democrat has reported.

Before the drug deal, Hoffman called investigators to tell them the
location of the meeting had changed. Investigators told her to stay
at the park location set up by narcotics officers, but Hoffman hung
up. Few details have emerged on what happened after that.

Hoffman's family and friends said police should not have used an
unprepared young woman to build a case against dangerous people.

"The good thing about it is, she told all her friends what was going
on," Carlton Lahmann, 34, said after the funeral. "Now that it all
went wrong, if she wouldn't have told all these people, we wouldn't
have known what happened."