SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- An emotional funeral service attended by family members, friends, and law enforcement colleagues was held Tuesday for two San Diego Police detectives who were killed in a wrong-way collision earlier this month.
A service for SDPD Det. Ryan Park, 32, and his 33-year-old wife, fellow Det. Jamie Huntley-Park, took place at Marantha Chapel (10752 Coastwood Rd.) in 4S Ranch.
"Ever since June 4 ... the outpouring of support has just been tremendous," SDPD Chief David Nisleit said at the memorial. "To Jaime and Ryan, you will be sorely missed but never forgotten. Rest in peace my friends, we'll take it from here."
On June 4, at around 10:30 a.m., Park and Huntley-Park were in a city-owned Ford Fusion traveling southbound on Interstate 5 near Dairy Mart Rd. in San Ysidro when a Honda Civic going northbound on the southbound lanes collided head-on with the Fusion.
The detectives and the Civic’s driver, later identified as 58-year-old Ramona resident Sandra Daniels, all died at the scene.
It was unclear how and why Daniels wound up on the wrong side of the freeway near Dairy Mart Road, traveling against traffic at speeds as fast as 90 mph, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Park and Huntley-Park had been married since 2016, having met while attending police academy four years earlier, according to Nisleit. They earned the rank of detective together in July 2018.
Huntley-Park grew up in La Jolla playing hockey, her father's favorite sport.
"I still find this weird that a SoCal kid in La Jolla plays hockey. But you know what, she was really good," Nisleit said.
Before she joined the police force, she played Division III hockey on a scholarship at Elmira College, a private college in Elmira, New York.
Nisleit said Huntley-Park was known as an enforcer on the ice and her dad was happy that she set the college's record for penalty minutes in a season.
After her playing days, Huntley-Park became a hockey referee and coach. She worked numerous events as a referee for USA Hockey, including an Olympic qualifier in Japan in 2017, two women's world championships and two Four Nations Cup tournaments.
Before joining SDPD, Park -- a UCLA graduate who grew up in Los Angeles -- conducted archeological field research in Cusco, Peru, Nisleit said.
Park met Nisleit in 2013, when he joined SDPD's team for the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay, a 120-mile run held annually stretching from Baker, California to Las Vegas.
From 2013 to 2014, Nisleit was Park's commanding officer in Western Division and ran with him after work on several occasions.
"Ryan was a very gifted runner, but he was also a goofy runner," Nisleit said. "(I) don't mean any harm or foul by that, but if there was a puddle, Ryan would jump in it."
SDPD homicide Detective Steven Choy, who went through police academy with the couple and was one of Park's roommates at the time, told the gathering that "Ryan and Jamie represented the very best of us."
"You both will be missed tremendously by your SDPD family," he said.
Following the funeral service, the large contingent of personnel from the San Diego Police Department and other agencies in attendance gathered outside the church and stood at attention, saluting, as officers in formal dress uniforms wheeled the couple's American flag-draped double casket to a waiting hearse, accompanied by a drum-and-bagpipe corps.
The couple was taken to an El Camino Cemetery for a private burial.
The San Diego Police Officers Association has set up a fundraiser for the Huntley and Park families. For more information, click HERE.
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City News Service contributed to this report.
