Nearly 100 Houston Police officers gathered Monday to pay their respects to Sgt. Steve Perez, who drowned last week in the flooding caused by Harvey.
Perez received a police escort as his body was moved from the Harris County Medical Examiner's office to a local funeral home.
Perez, a 34-year veteran of the Houston Police Department, worked with the Houston Police Department's traffic enforcement division. He was two days shy of his 61st birthday.
Officials said left his home at 4 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, during heavy rain. Officials said he spent more than two hours trying to get to his command post in the the downtown area, but could not find a path.
Perez informed his chain of command and tried to get to the closest command post in Kingwood, but got caught in flood waters under an overpass near the Hardy Toll Road and Beltway 8.
Officers recovered Perez's body in the morning of Monday, Aug. 28.
"He tried to do his best to be in a position to serve the people in the city of Houston, and he died 'in trying.' That's the ultimate sacrifice," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the day after Perez's body was recovered.
See more of the mayor's moving tribute to Sgt. Perez and other law enforcement working during Harvey.
