Alfin’s casket, covered in an American flag and followed by his widow, Jessie, and young son, Eli, was wheeled out to midfield on turf that is normally home for the NFL’s Miami Dolphins but was changed for the 2nd consecutive day to an open-air sanctuary for the solemn service.
The funeral was held just one day after a memorial ceremony for FBI special agent Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, who along with the 36-year-old Alfin, were gunned down Tuesday while working on a search warrant in the Sunrise, Florida, home of a child pornography suspect. Four additional FBI agents were injured in the ambush.
The suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” officials said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said at Sunday’s support which both Alfin and Schwartzenberger were”cut from the same patriotic material.”
“On Tuesdaywe lost not one of our own, but two, two warriors that took one of the most difficult jobs in the FBI — crimes against kids,” said Wray, who also spoke at Schwartzenberger’s ceremony on Saturday.
He said Alfin and Schwartznberger were two best friends”who shared the exact same passion, the same conclusion and, in spite of all they observed in their outstanding careers, the same feeling of optimism and hope that comes from work that matters.”
Wray stated Alfin joined the FBI in 2009, beginning in the agency’s Albany, New York, field office.
He explained Alfin as a”true American hero” that had been filled with”passion for fighting for kids every single day.” He said Alfin, that was likewise a member of the FBI’s dive group, was an innovator with an unsurpassed comprehension of the technical side of crimes against children.
Alfin, according to Wray, played a significant part in fighting crime against children globally, training the FBI’s global partners. He said Alfin’s staff won an FBI Director’s Award, the agency’s highest honor, for his or her work on”Operation Pacifier,” in which he and other agents took down one of the largest child exploitation sites on the dark net.
“Its customers were the worst of the worst, most the stuff of nightmares. And Dan’s experience helped identify them stop the victimization of so many innocent kids,” Wray said. “Dan was both the principal case agent and also the driving force behind that operation, which still stands as the FBI’s most successful operation conducted on the shadowy web against internet child sex offenders ever.”
Alfin’s brother, Denis Alfin, remembered his sister’s sharp intellect and a dry wit.
“In honoring Daniel today, we’re not just saying goodbye to a colleague, a friend, a brother, a son, a father, or a husband, but we are jointly ensuring his memory lives on,” Denis Alfin explained. As you continue to protect our communities, you will keep part of Daniel alive”
Throughout the service, Wray presented the flag that had coated Alfin’s casket to his widow.
Ahead of the ceremony ended with a police helicopter flyover and with a riderless horse being trotted on the field and next to Alfin’s casket, Father James Quinn, chaplain of the FBI Miami field office, mentioned scripture saying”God will bless the peacemakers.”
“Daniel was a peacemaker in addition to being a peacekeeper,” Quinn said.
