FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Zachary Fink is the latest law enforcement officer to die in the line of duty on the Treasure Coast.
Fink was killed Friday morning while trying to detain a fleeing felon on Interstate 95 in St. Lucie County.
It was almost four years ago to the day that Trooper Joseph Bullock was shot and killed along Interstate 95 in Martin County.
Bullock had stopped to assist the driver of a disabled vehicle on Feb. 5, 2020, when the driver fatally shot the 42-year-old trooper.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the driver became enraged after learning he had to pay for a tow truck.
An off-duty Riviera Beach police officer who was passing by at the time pulled over, then shot and killed the suspect.
More than a decade ago, a St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office sergeant was gunned down during a traffic stop in Fort Pierce.
Sgt. Gary Morales had been pursuing Eriese Tisdale on Feb. 28, 2013, when Tisdale got out of his vehicle and fatally shot Morales in his car.
Tisdale was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, but because the jury recommendation was not unanimous, he remains in prison awaiting resentencing.
More recently, a state wildlife officer was killed in a wrong-way crash in St. Lucie County in 2022.
The Florida Highway Patrol said a woman was driving a Kia sedan eastbound in the westbound lanes of Okeechobee Road on June 2, 2022, when the car slammed head-on into an unmarked Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission pickup truck driven by senior investigator Kyle Patterson.
Patterson and the driver were both killed in the crash.
