WHAT 15-year-old Jazmin Nazario admired most about her mother, Philadelphia Police Officer Isabel Nazario, was something that she was surprised to find within herself yesterday - strength.
"Right now, I'm strong," she said. "This strength is from my mother and I feel that's her blessing to me."
Hundreds of people gathered for a vigil yesterday afternoon at 39th and Wallace streets in Mantua, where Nazario's life was taken Friday night by a teen driver in a stolen vehicle, according to police.
Police have charged 16-year-old Andre Butler as an adult with third-degree murder, aggravated assault and related crimes for the crash that killed 18-year-force veteran Nazario, 40, and injured her partner of seven years, Officer Terry Tull, 38.
Tull, a 12-year veteran, remains at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in stable condition, with a broken hip and broken ribs.
"He's doing good. He's coming along as well as can be expected," Tull's wife, Sharnell, said. "It's a lot to take in. It's overwhelming."
The officers, part of the city's Narcotics Strike Force Unit, were headed to assist in a pursuit of the 1999 white Cadillac Escalade that Butler was charged with driving.
Butler allegedly T-boned Nazario and Tull's marked cop car as they were southbound on 39th Street while he sped down Wallace Street, strike force Lt. Brian Dorsey said.
"Terry said he looked up and that quick, the guy was on them," Dorsey said. "The last thing Terry saw was Isabel with her eyes [wide] like this."
While the officers' car was so severely damaged in the crash that it took the Jaws of Life to extricate them from the wreckage, Butler was able to flee from the scene on foot. He was caught shortly thereafter at Union and Mt. Vernon streets, Lt. Frank Vanore, police spokesman, said.
Dorsey relived the night for Nazario's family yesterday, pointing to the spot where the crash happened, noting tire skid marks on the road and remembering how he and other officers just couldn't get Nazario out of the car.
"It was a trying night," he said.
Patricia Santiago, Nazario's mother, said she wanted to see the spot where her daughter lost her life.
"I wanted to know how that Friday night my daughter went to work and never came home," she said.
Santiago said Nazario was a "beautiful mother" and a "beautiful daughter" who was as pretty on the inside as she was on the outside.
"I'm very sick without her," Santiago said.
"She's in heaven now. She died doing her work and I'm proud of her."
