Kissimmee cop: Anyone in agency would wash up stains

A 28-second video of a Kissimmee police officer scrubbing blood off the street where two of his fellow officers were fatally shot the night before garnered thousands of responses online.

But Sgt. Matt Koski said he did what anyone in the department would’ve done. “In situations like this, everybody just wants to do something, anything that can help ease pain,” he said. “And if I could help then great, but anybody who saw that would have done it, too.”

Officer Matt Baxter and Sgt. Richard “Sam” Howard were shot late Friday night on Palmway Street in the city’s McLaren Circle area. Baxter died the same night. Howard was taken off life support Saturday at Osceola Regional Medical Center.

The street had been cleaned after the crime scene was cleared, Koski said. But he could still see blood stains in the street. They bothered the sergeant, who knew Baxter and Howard well. Koski and Howard served on the SWAT team together. Then last year, Baxter was assigned to his squad.

A memorial was growing at the base of a nearby tree with balloons, cards and flowers. A vigil is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at that spot.

“That was a spot where our brothers died, where the families will visit, where a vigil was going to be held the next day and where we will have to go back to work,” Koski said. “It needed to be done.”

So he returned with an orange bucket of soapy water and broom. Residents sitting in their driveways and others standing by the memorial watched as he scrubbed. A driver in a red pickup coming down the road stopped and backed up when he saw Koski.

Koski, who wore dark sunglasses, said he didn’t think as he scrubbed, poured more soapy water over the stains, and scrubbed some more as the bubbles turned a light red. He would have been too emotional, he admitted: “I had no problem being the one to do it, but cleaning the scene was difficult and unbelievable — just like everything that day.”