Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey arrived in dress uniform at 6:15 p.m. "We've got a lot of violence on our streets," he told reporters. "It hurts every time we lose someone. "
Mourners - crying, hugging one another and talking softly - waited patiently before being allowed to file into the one-story brick building to console Nazario's family.
A patrol car draped in black, with Nazario's name written on the driver's-side door, was parked on the lawn in front of the funeral home.
Her cousin Maria Marty broke down in tears as a TV reporter tried to interview her. Nazario, a native of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, "loved her job," Marty said in Spanish. "She just loved being a police officer. "
Marty described Nazario as "a big-hearted woman" and someone to whom she could always go to talk about her problems.
Officer Angel Colon, a 16-year veteran of the Philadelphia police force, couldn't bear to come in uniform for the viewing. It seemed too sad.
"I've gone to one too many of these," Colon said.
Nazario, who wore badge 6341, was on patrol in West Philadelphia's 16th Police District at 9:30 p.m. Friday when she and her partner, Officer Terry Tull, were called to assist in a vehicle pursuit.
Police allege that Andre Butler, 16, of the city's Mantua section, was spotted erratically driving a stolen 1999 Cadillac Escalade.
As Nazario and her partner headed south on 39th Street, the Escalade, traveling east on Wallace Street, broadsided their cruiser near the passenger door.
Nazario was killed instantly and Tull was severely injured, police said. Both officers had to be pried from the wreckage.
Colon said there could be no excuses for the 16-year-old driver.
"It shouldn't have happened," Colon said.
Ramsey said Butler had a "troubled history. "
"I hope he gets a lot of time from the courts," Ramsey said.
