Rain clouds appeared ready to burst over Chinatown as hundreds of law enforcement officers lined Maunakea Street Tuesday afternoon and prepared to enter Borthwick Mortuary to pay their respects to officer Garret Davis.

Davis, 28, was killed Jan. 21 when a pickup truck crashed into his patrol car after the officer stopped on the narrow shoulder of H-1 freeway in Aiea to assist stranded motorists.

Speaker after speaker at Tuesday’s funeral service described Davis as enthusiastic and dedicated to two causes: police work and his 3-year-old daughter, Mackenzie Rose.

HPD Detective James Slater, who helped train Davis’ 161st recruit class, said Davis was self-motivated, intelligent and a positive thinker. Early on, Slater recalled, one training officer worried that Davis was "too nice and timid" to be an officer. "But no matter how we tested him, Garret wouldn’t back down. He wouldn’t break and he wouldn’t get angry."

Slater said the only time he heard Davis swear was right after Slater used a Taser gun on him as part of a training lesson. "Even then he quickly composed himself and went right back to the smile."

"Garret was always upbeat, easygoing, and had an infectious positive energy," he said.

Detective Nicholas Schlapak, a member of Davis’ recruit class, recalled the day the class was tested on how they would react to pepper spray. As everyone else was tearing and burning up, Davis appeared unaffected, Schlapak said. Davis calmly told the class, "‘Come on, guys, shake it off, it’s not that bad,’" he said.

Schlapak said the story was classic Davis. "He had the ability to shrug off the bad things in life and keep on going as if nothing had happened."

Amanda Stevens, Davis’ sister, said her brother had a love of spicy foods from childhood which probably helped his body counteract the affects of pepper spray.

Davis’ favorite food was Mexican, and his favorite Mexican restaurant in Hawaii was Cholo’s Homestyle Mexican Restaurant in Haleiwa. When Cholo’s co-owner Nancy Salemi was told this, she dispatched a lunch truck to cater the funeral free of charge, police said.

Stevens and Davis’ girlfriend, Vianca Solaris, said the fallen officer was completely devoted to his daughter, who lived in California with her mother.

Stevens said Davis had a difficult time attending recruit class and struggling to keep in touch with Mackenzie Rose.

"He tried calling and seeing her every chance he could," Stevens said, even when there were people trying to stop him from doing so. "Most men would have given up, but he kept going. It was so important to Garret that Mackenzie Rose know who her father was."

Stevens said Davis would want his fellow officers to continue "to do good for other people and to always do it with a smile on your face."

Solaris said Davis never complained about his job but that she worried for his safety.

"Two weeks before Garret passed away, I asked him, ‘Promise me that you will be OK and will come home to me every night.’ He responded, ‘I can’t promise you that, honey, but I will promise you I will try to do my very best.’

"And you know what? I said, ‘That’s good enough for me, I can deal with that.’"

Family members said Davis had always wanted to be a police officer, and that the opportunity to come to Hawaii came about when he visited a job convention in Las Vegas.

Sgt. Lori Cresap, Davis’ cousin and a member of the Fairfield Police Department in Ohio, said Davis worked hard at his job, including learning Hawaiian street names. "I am proud of my cousin, I am proud of the man he grew up to be, I am proud of the choices he made," Cresap said. "I am proud that he chose to spend his life serving and protecting others. I am proud that he chose to stop at the side of the H-1 highway that night. That decision saved lives."

Besides his sister, girlfriend and daughter, Davis is survived by his mother, Rhonda Kay Davis.

Davis was the second Hono­lulu officer killed while on duty along Oahu highways in the last four months. Eric Fontes was killed while helping with a traffic stop along Farrington Highway in Ko Olina on Sept. 13.

Police said if Davis had not stopped, the two people in the vehicle would likely have been killed instead.

HPD is scheduled to hold a final-salute ceremony in front of the South Beretania Street headquarters at about 1 p.m. today.