LAS VEGAS (AP) - A veteran Las Vegas police officer who for 16 years headed a program supporting families of officers hurt or killed in the line of duty became the first officer to die from complications of COVID-19, department officials said.
Lt. Erik Lloyd, 53, died Wednesday at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, according to a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department statement that said his death was considered to be in the line of duty.
“The LVMPD is a better agency for having Erik,” said Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the elected head of the department with about 4,000 sworn police and corrections officers and hundreds of civilian employees.
The sheriff credited Lloyd, president of the Injured Officers Police Fund, with leaving a legacy of helping people in their greatest time of grief.
“I speak for everyone who knew him that this is a profound loss,” Lombardo said.
Originally from Downey, California, Lloyd became a patrol officer in Las Vegas in September 1990 and a narcotics detective in 1995. He made lieutenant in 2014 and worked in internal affairs, counter-terrorism and use-of-force investigations.
As fund leader, Lloyd and his wife, Minddie Lloyd, coordinated support for wounded officers and their families. They organized a recent fundraiser for Officer Shay Mikalonis, who is being treated for paralysis after he was shot June 1 during a protest on the Las Vegas Strip.
The couple was married 22 years, with two daughters and five grandchildren, the department said.
Minddie Lloyd, executive assistant to a Las Vegas judge, William Kephart, was also hospitalized with COVID-19 but recently returned home. She made a Republican primary bid for state Assembly in 2016 and lost a race in 2018 for Clark County clerk.
Erik Lloyd previously battled throat cancer, and Kephart, a longtime family friend, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that before he was hospitalized he described symptoms of the virus as “like a super strong flu.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.