AN OFFICER IS CALLED ROLE MODEL WHO CARED

FAIR LAWN, N.J., April 23 - The crowds of teary-eyed strangers, the
riderless stallion clip-clopping down St. Anne's Street, the carloads of
flowers, the eulogies, the appearance by the governor - friends say it all
would probably have made Mary Ann Collura blush.

"She would have been dumbfounded by all the attention," said David Boone, a
colleague and friend of Officer Collura, a Fair Lawn fixture who lost her
life last week as she tried to arrest a small-time drug dealer.

A Harley-Davidson enthusiast known for her towering height and
self-sacrificial streak, Officer Collura, 43, was buried today amid a
spectacular pageant of grief that drew thousands of uniformed officers from
across the state, and from as far as Florida and California.

Many, like Geoffrey Hawthorne, an officer from Ramapo, N.J., said they came
to honor what law enforcement officials commonly call "the ultimate
sacrifice."

"Everyone here knows it could have easily been one of them," he said against
the mournful backdrop of a bagpipe procession.

Officer Collura, an 18-year veteran of the force, was killed last Thursday
night as she struggled with a man who had led authorities on a car chase
through several towns. His vehicle came to a stop on the grass of a Fair
Lawn church, and investigators say Officer Collura, who had answered another
officer's call for backup, was felled by two bullets and then run over by
the suspect as he sped away in her patrol car.

The other officer, Steven Farrell of Clifton, was shot and wounded by the
man, Omar Marti, 23, a marijuana dealer from Paterson whose own life ended
violently on Sunday during a shootout with police in Florida. Officer
Farrell attended the funeral in a wheelchair.

Wearing white gloves and standing grimly at attention, the out-of-town
officers packed the narrow residential streets around St. Anne's Roman
Catholic Church, adding to the sense that this close-knit town had suffered
a momentous loss. Mary Ann Collura, after all, was Fair Lawn's first female
officer and its only officer ever to die in the line of duty.

"I've lived here all my life and nothing so terrible has ever happened
here," said Judy Donato, 50, choking with emotion as nearly 200 motorcycles
rumbled down her block. "God willing, it will never happen again."

Almost everyone who stood outside the church today had an endearing tale
about the garrulous, wisecracking officer who could often be seen riding her
motorcycle along Broadway or playing basketball in the park. Mothers praised
her for a safety program she started that distributes glow sticks to
trick-or-treaters, and fellow officers lauded her for a tough but
compassionate style of policing.

Doug Kearney, an 8-year-old Cub Scout, recalled the time Officer Collura
gave his troop a tour of the Fair Lawn station house. "She locked us in a
cell, but she was nice," he said.

But among the legion of uniformed mourners today, the police women seemed to
express the most intense feelings of loss. Some, like Sgt. Phyllis Bindi of
East Orange, knew about Officer Collura when she was a high school student
dreaming of a career in law enforcement. "She was a groundbreaker," Sergeant
Bindi, 33, said. "I knew if she could do it, I could. That made a big
difference."

Diane Catalano, 44, a police sergeant from Ridgefield Park, N.J., did not
know the fallen officer but said she felt a powerful sense of kinship. Like
Officer Collura, she, too, was the first woman on her local force and had to
work double time to prove herself. "Some days, I'd show up on a call and
they'd say, `I asked for a policeman, not you,' " she recalled.

In the eulogy to her aunt, Amy Klinky recalled the self-deprecating jokes,
the bottomless generosity and the impromptu, junk food-fueled road trips the
two used to take to nonspecific destinations, like Virginia. "She didn't
consider us lost as long as there was gas in the car," Ms. Klinky said.

Above all, she said, Officer Collura lived to give of herself. During last
week's wake, she said, a disabled man had come up to her to say that Officer
Collura had been his only friend in school.

Another woman, once shy and newly arrived in town, explained how Officer
Collura had offered to be her guardian angel. "If anyone gives you trouble,
let me know," the woman recalled Officer Collura telling her as a girl.
"I'll be your protector."

That impulse to stand up for the weak, Ms. Klinky said, guided Officer
Collura both in and out of uniform. "She never missed an opportunity to help
others," she said, "and never expected anything in return."