'He Was a Police Officer With His Heart and Soul'
Posted on: Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 06:00 CST
By Andrea Torres, The Miami Herald
Feb. 21--Ubaldo V. Del Toro, a longtime police officer, died Feb. 14 of brain cancer. He was 52.
Del Toro worked for the Hialeah Police Department until he left to teach college in 2003. Earlier in his career he had worked for the Miami-Dade Police Department.
He was tried for and acquitted of cover-up charges in one of the county's most infamous police brutality cases: the 1979 beating death of Arthur McDuffie, a searing moment in the county's history that touched off street riots.
Del Toro had been accused of failing to disclose his knowledge of an alleged coverup. He was acquitted in 1980. Miami-Dade reinstated him and allowed him to resign with a clean record in 1981.
"He was a police officer with his heart and soul," said his wife Cindy Del Toro. "Working out, karate, reading, meditating, it was all done to defend the public."
Del Toro, known to friends and family as "Eddie," was born May 16, 1953 in Havana. His family moved to New York when he was 6 and to Miami when he was 17.
He earned a bachelor's in business administration from Florida International University. At the police academy, he graduated fifth in his class.
"The police force was his family," said Del Toro.
In 1980, Del Toro told The Miami Herald that on Dec. 17, 1979, at about 2 a.m., his police car got a flat tire during the high-speed chase after McDuffie. Del Toro claimed that when he got to McDuffie, he had already been handcuffed and other officers had taken control of the situation. He went to change his tire and said he didn't see anything.
He returned to law enforcement at the City of Hialeah's SWAT team in the early 1980s.
"He loved Jesus Christ and his children and taught them challenges build character," Cynthia Del Toro said.
Del Toro earned a master's of science in Criminal Justice from FIU in 1998. He left law enforcement in 2003 and began to teach at Miami Dade College's School of Justice.
Del Toro was a member of the National Tactical Officers Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Miami-Dade County Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Region 14 Advisory Council.
In addition to his wife, Del Toro is survived by daughter Keely, 15; son Ian, 11; parents Veimar Del Toro and Norma Chavez; and brother Edward Del Toro.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald
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Source: The Miami Herald
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