South Florida Sun-Sentinel<\/a> reported that Alu\u2019s wife told them he had fallen ill and was forced to retire in 2024 due to his illness.<\/p>\n\u201cHe faithfully served the Palm Beach County Sheriff\u2019s Office and our community from October 2017 until his retirement in February 2024,\u201d PBSO posted on its Facebook page.<\/p>\n
According to the Sun-Sentinel, Alu was burned on more than 20 percent of his body on July 25, 1995, after he and Plantation police Detective Jim O\u2019Hara entered a home and tried to rescue sisters Anne Marie Smith, 14, and Hideko Smith, 16, who were being held hostage in a bedroom that had been doused with gasoline.<\/p>\n
Authorities said the suspect, Steven Joseph, 32, poured gasoline on the sisters and the officers before setting the room on fire, causing an explosion. <\/p>\n
Both sisters and the suspect died. O\u2019Hara survived, but sustained burns to more than 77% of his body.<\/p>\n
According to detectives, the sisters\u2019 mother, Angela Marie Smith, kicked Joseph out of her home where they lived with her three daughters after the sisters accused him of molesting them.<\/p>\n
The Sun-Sentinel reported that following the tragedy, Alu, who had a long road to recovery, advocated for changes in law \u201cthat would ensure first responders continued to receive health benefits after being injured in the line of duty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A former Plantation police officer who was severely burned in a 1995 home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":{"0":"post-110551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-fort-lauderdale","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}