Amidst tiers of pageantry dating back hundreds of years and tears of grief shed by hundreds of still disbelieving persons, posthumously promoted Lt. Curt Massey of the Culver City Police Dept. was buried this morning from Our Lady of Angels Cathedral in a massively impressive display of one man’s sphere of influence.
[img]316|left|Lt. Curt Massey||no_popup[/img] Before perhaps 1300 persons — including hundreds of brother officers in uniform — in the sparingly furnished, strictly modern cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahoney led the funeral Mass.
While the Cardinal was perhaps the most celebrated person in the remarkably hushed sanctuary, he was incidental to the overall ceremony or any tribute.
Nine days ago, the 41-year-old Lt. Massey, a married father of three quite young children, was freakishly sent to his death. In the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 28, a wrong-way young driver smashed into Lt. Massey’s car on the Santa Monica Freeway without the officer having a chance to try to veer from the path.
Loyal to a Community Son
By the hundreds, Palisades friends of Melody and Curt Massey from their parish, Corpus Christi Church, poured into the cathedral on the kind of rainy day that a fellow officer “Curt loved.”
School was canceled for the day at Corpus Christi School in the officer’s hometown of Pacific Palisades, where two of his children are students.
The ritual-heavy 1 hour and 45-minute Catholic service, before such a vast throng was notable because until the final 15 minutes, only thin and scattered references were made to Lt. Massey.
Not until his stepfather, John Davis, delivered a brilliant depiction of Lt. Massey — following a tribute by Police Chief Don Pedersen — did a useful picture of the officer start to emerge.
Suitable for Framing
It was an extraordinarily crafted work of loving art that should be studied by others.
Sensitively, humanly, spiritedly and rhythmically, Mr. Davis appealingly fleshed out the unique history of one child’s influence on family dynamics, from teenager, when they met, to the fullness of a rich, rounded life lived in Curt Massey’s singular way.
Encountering the future cop for the first time at the age of 15 when he married the young man’s mother, Mr. Davis lightly but with deep feeling sketched an adventurous, affectionate, sometimes rollicking, journey across the next 26 years.
As a teenager, he said, Curt often thought he knew everything about everything. What made that so exasperating for a step-parent, as well as for his mother, was that, by gosh, often he did.
He may not have been correct quite as frequently as he asserted, said his stepfather, but that was only because he was human, ergo imperfect.
The Way He Would Turn Out
Mr. Davis identified striking characteristics that his fellow officers became acquainted with quickly and early in his 17-year tenure.
Mr. Pedersen set up the developing snapshot by relating how Lt. Massey was known, affectionately — though not necessarily all of the time affectionately — as The General for his penchant to give directions to superior officers.
Famous for his lengthy and sometimes specious explanations of almost all matter in the world, the Police Chief gave one example. He said that for anyone who doubted that there was a distinction between a fire truck and a fire engine, Lt. Massey would supply a definition that could last several miles beyond the listener’s modest range of interest.
Mr. Davis’s unrelentingly vivid reminiscences provided entirely respectful relief from unremitting grief.
He said his stepson became a grownup earlier than most, of necessity, as the man of the house, the unanimously agreed-upon protector of his mother and brother.
Whether with his siblings or his Culver City colleagues, he consistently seemed to be in charge of every situation in which he was involved, whether (en)titled or not.
As a teenager, the irresistible mold that fellow officers found sometimes admirable, sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying, was already tightly shaped.
“Curt was meticulous about everything he did,” Mr. Davis said — and you could see the faces of more than a hundred Culver City officers seated behind him immediately conjure up memorable encounters with Lt. Massey.
Young Curt Massey’s passionate fascination with nearly everything that moved or ticked, combined with his lifelong devotion to his religious heritage, to his family, to his parish community, to pragmatically aiding at-risk youth above almost all other human beings, gave him a complicated profile deemed deserving of both serious and informal emulation.
When Mr. Davis said that “Curt was Mr. Organization and Mr. Right,” Mr. Pedersen’s officers knew his stepfather had struck rhetorical gold. “Curt was the most organized of our five kids, better organized than any of us,” the stepfather said.
From taking his children and hers in their blended family on a 4-week honeymoon in Europe — where Curt played a starring role — to Curt’s reaction to the sound of sirens, to his “inner surge to be part of the action,” to his Batman-Gotham City-Batmobile days, Mr. Davis showed perfect pitch in sounding each family note just right.
“He is my son,” Mr. Davis said.
“He is my friend.
“Curt knew he was loved.”
The Backdrop
Hundreds already were in their seats an hour before the funeral Mass, and, perhaps amazingly, every single person spoke only in hushed tones, if at all.
The only voices raised were by those participating in the Mass.
Following a procession of dozens of vehicles from Culver City to 555 W. Temple St., the journey in reverse ended at Holy Cross Cemetery, where Lt. Massey was buried.
