Tribute amid tears — Thousands attend funeral of slain corrections officer

BLUFFDALE — Thousands of friends, family members, co-workers and fellow law-enforcement officers paid their final respects Friday to a man remembered as a loving husband, devoted father and a man of God who led by example with his kind heart and generosity.

Stephen Anderson, 60, was laid to rest with a massive outpouring of support. The 1,800-seat-capacity chapel and overflow area in the Bluffdale LDS Stake Center, 14400 S. 2742 West, where funeral services were held, was already near capacity an hour before the funeral began. Chairs were put on a stage behind the overflow area, and video was fed into four overflow rooms to accommodate the large crowd.

Police chiefs and sheriffs from across the state sat in the front of the stage along with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and his wife, Mary Kaye, to pay tribute.

Anderson, a Utah state corrections officer, was shot and killed Monday during an escape attempt. Inmate Curtis Allgier, who had just completed an MRI at the University Orthopaedic Center, has been accused of the crime. Allgier was charged Thursday with aggravated murder. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.

At Friday's funeral, the stake center's neighborhood seemed to double in population as police squad cars, motorcycles, ambulances and other emergency vehicles from just about every law-enforcement organization in Utah lined the streets for more than a mile.

Between 2,000 to 3,000 people were estimated to have attended the service from Utah, the rest of the nation and even Canada.