MORE TEXT TO COME; CHECK BACK AGAIN Brandon remembered in a big way Tampa patrol officers David Curtis and Jeffrey A. Kocab, who were fatally shot June 29, 2010 in the line of duty after what seemed to be a routine traffic stop. Hundreds of people were expected at the July 10 fundraiser at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon, which instead drew close to a couple thousand attendees, according to officials in charge of the event. The fundraiser at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and John Moore Road was hosted by the Steele Swine Tampa chapter of the Renegade Pigs Motorcycle Club, which is comprised of law enforcement officers and firefighters, past and present. What You Can Do:Donations are being accepted at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon and Bartow through August 1. Make checks payable to "RMPC Tampa" and write in the memo area, "For fallen officers, Curtis and Kocab." The Tampa Police Department requests you call (813) 231-6130 to express your condolences. Another way to make monetary donation is to make your checks payable to: "Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund." Mail to: Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund, c/o The Tampa Police Memorial Committee, P.O. Box 172995, Tampa, FL 33672. Donations also can be dropped off at any Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union location. - MyPaperNow.com

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The families of slain Tampa police officers David Curtis and Jeffrey A. Kocab benefit from a Renegade Pigs Motorcylce Club fundraiser at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon. The Steel Swine Tampa chapter of the club is comprised of members with employment past and present in law enforcement and firefighting.

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MORE TEXT TO COME; CHECK BACK AGAIN

Brandon remembered in a big way Tampa patrol officers David Curtis and Jeffrey A. Kocab, who were fatally shot June 29, 2010 in the line of duty after what seemed to be a routine traffic stop.

Hundreds of people were expected at the July 10 fundraiser at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon, which instead drew close to a couple thousand attendees, according to officials in charge of the event.

The fundraiser at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and John Moore Road was hosted by the Steele Swine Tampa chapter of the Renegade Pigs Motorcycle Club, which is comprised of law enforcement officers and firefighters, past and present.

What You Can Do:Donations are being accepted at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon and Bartow through August 1. Make checks payable to "RMPC Tampa" and write in the memo area, "For fallen officers, Curtis and Kocab."
The Tampa Police Department requests you call (813) 231-6130 to express your condolences.
Another way to make monetary donation is to make your checks payable to: "Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund." Mail to: Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund, c/o The Tampa Police Memorial Committee, P.O. Box 172995, Tampa, FL 33672. Donations also can be dropped off at any Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union location.

Estimates of "a couple thousand" were offered at the end of the July 10 fundraiser in reference to the number of people who showed up to pay their respects and offer donations to the families of slain Tampa police officers Dave Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab.

The fundraiser was held at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and John Moore Road, at the year-old Big Belly Burgers restaurant, after a mere five days of planning.

As the occasion drew to an end, a small group of people snapped photos of this group of Renegade Pigs Motorcycle Club members, from left, Jim Surrusco, Sam Massaro, Jason Himmel, Eric King, and Travis Wright.

"We did not expect what happened today," says Travis Wright, right, with Jason Himmel, a detective with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. "It's unbelievable. I'm overwhelmed."

Wright, with fellow motorcycle patrol officer Chuck VanSickle, arranged for the July 10 fundraiser through their motorcycle club, the Steel Swine Tampa chapter of Renegade Pigs. Proceeds from the event at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon were to benefit the families of Tampa police patrol officers Dave Curtis and Jeff Kocab, who died on the job on June 29, 2010.

"We expected maybe a couple hundred people to show up," Wright says. "But we well exceeded our expectations. Passing in and out, there probably were a couple thousand people who showed up."

Donations, collected on July 10 and through August 1 at the Big Belly Burgers locations in Bartow and Brandon, will be "split down the middle" for the Curtis and Kocab families, Wright says.

"Chuck and I have represented the community in just about every law enforcement funeral in the state over the past five years and there's been close to 50 of them," Wright says. "Each one of them's different. And being on motorcycles, as escorts, we have even more contact with the families. It makes it a little more intimate." And,he adds, gave the officers even more of an incentive to reach out to the Curtis and Kocab families with community support.

"Customers asked us for our help and we said, 'Whatever you need, we'll do it.' We put this [fundraiser] together over the past five days and it's been a great success," says Big Belly Burgers owner Scott Lindsey, center, with his partner owners Terry Haley, left, and Rick Miller.

Big Belly Burgers has locations in Brandon and Bartow and the operation's two additional owners, Rick Gibson and Mel Myers, also were behind the July 10 fundraising effort.

"It's part of giving back to the community," Lindsey says. "And it's the right thing to do."

Haley says the year-old restaurant in Brandon strives to be a communitiy partner, much like his former restaurant, Tadpoles, was when it was in operation in Valrico.

When fundraiser organizers Chuck VanSickle and Travis Wright asked the Big Belly Burgers owners for assistance, "we didn't even think about it," Haley says. "It's a break from the day- to -day, we enjoy doing it, and it gives us a chance to help."

Jim "Felix" Surrusco holds up a T-shirt offered for sale for $15 to benefit the families of falled officers Dave Curtis and Jeff Kocab. The former law enforcement officer, with a tenure in New York City from 1988 to 2001, is now a member of the Renegade Pigs Motorcycle Club in Tampa.

"It's a law enforcement chapter," Surrusco says. "Everybody in my chapter is retired or active law enforcement."

Makes it a no-brainer, then, that RMPC members would join together on a hot day in July, just 11 days after a routine traffic stop led to the tragic deaths of two young officers, to raise money for the fallen officers' families.

"It feels like a member of your family died," Surrusco says. To law enforcement officers and retirees, he adds: "It's a family of blue."

"It just makes you realize there's no such thing as a routine thing in law enforcement," Jim Surrusco says about the untimely deaths of Tampa Police officers Dave Curtis and Jeff Kocab. "It was just a simple car stop. You never know who you're going to pull over."

According to the city's accounting of events, the shootings occurred on June 29, 2010 at 2:15 a.m., after Curtis moved to pull over a vehicle with no license plate at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and 50th Street. The driver eventually pulled over at 50th Street and 23rd Avenue. Curtis called for backup and Kocab responded after Curtis realized the passenger was wanted in Jacksonville on a worthless check warrant.

Records show "the next communication came from a citizen calling 911 to report two officers were shot." Responding paramedics transported both officers to Tampa General Hospital, where Kocab was pronounced dead shortly after arrival to the hospital and Curtis, who was put on life support, was pronounced dead later that morning.

Curtis, 31, served three years and eight months on the force and leaves behind a wife and four sons between the ages eight months and nine years. Before becoming a police officer, Curtis was a jail deputy with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Kocab, 31, had nearly 14 months on the force and died one week shy of the expected delivery of his first child. Kocab served with the Plant City Police Department before becoming a Tampa patrol officer.

"So many people here didn't know the cops who died but they came out of respect and that's a wonderful thing," says detective Jason Himmel, with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and a member of the Steel Swine Tampa chapter of the Renegade Pigs Motorocycle Club. "That's the reason I do the job that I do. We want to help people and we want to make it a safe place for the people who want to live in this community in the right way."

MORE TEXT TO COME; CHECK BACK AGAIN

Brandon remembered in a big way Tampa patrol officers David Curtis and Jeffrey A. Kocab, who were fatally shot June 29, 2010 in the line of duty after what seemed to be a routine traffic stop.

Hundreds of people were expected at the July 10 fundraiser at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon, which instead drew close to a couple thousand attendees, according to officials in charge of the event.

The fundraiser at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and John Moore Road was hosted by the Steele Swine Tampa chapter of the Renegade Pigs Motorcycle Club, which is comprised of law enforcement officers and firefighters, past and present.

What You Can Do:

Donations are being accepted at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon and Bartow through August 1. Make checks payable to "RMPC Tampa" and write in the memo area, "For fallen officers, Curtis and Kocab."

The Tampa Police Department requests you call (813) 231-6130 to express your condolences.

Another way to make monetary donation is to make your checks payable to: "Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund." Mail to: Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund, c/o The Tampa Police Memorial Committee, P.O. Box 172995, Tampa, FL 33672. Donations also can be dropped off at any Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union location.

David Curtis and Jeffrey A. Kocab, who were fatally shot June 29, 2010 in the line of duty after what seemed to be a routine traffic stop. Hundreds of people were expected at the July 10 fundraiser at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon, which instead drew close to a couple thousand attendees, according to officials in charge of the event. The fundraiser at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and John Moore Road was hosted by the Steele Swine Tampa chapter of the Renegade Pigs Motorcycle Club, which is comprised of law enforcement officers and firefighters, past and present. What You Can Do:

Donations are being accepted at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon and Bartow through August 1. Make checks payable to "RMPC Tampa" and write in the memo area, "For fallen officers, Curtis and Kocab."
The Tampa Police Department requests you call (813) 231-6130 to express your condolences.
Another way to make monetary donation is to make your checks payable to: "Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund." Mail to: Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund, c/o The Tampa Police Memorial Committee, P.O. Box 172995, Tampa, FL 33672. Donations also can be dropped off at any Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union location.

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Donations are being accepted at Big Belly Burgers in Brandon and Bartow through August 1. Make checks payable to "RMPC Tampa" and write in the memo area, "For fallen officers, Curtis and Kocab."

The Tampa Police Department requests you call (813) 231-6130 to express your condolences.

Another way to make monetary donation is to make your checks payable to: "Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund." Mail to: Curtis/Kocab Memorial Fund, c/o The Tampa Police Memorial Committee, P.O. Box 172995, Tampa, FL 33672. Donations also can be dropped off at any Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union location.

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