CLEVELAND, Ohio — Co-workers and family members remember the Cuyahoga County Jail officer who died last week in a shootout outside a Parma bar as a loving father with loads of friends and a man who loved to help people, including many co-workers who looked up to him.
Timoteo “Timmy” Cruz was hailed as a hero by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff, Parma police and those inside Rookies Bar & Grill when a angry patron opened fire with an AR-15 after he was asked to leave.
Cruz intentionally drew the gunman’s attention away from shooting bar patrons, according to court records. He died in the shootout, but not before he shot the gunman and stopped the attack. Bar patron Sean Michael Acierno also died in the shooting.
“He put his life right dead-smack in the middle of that situation to save all those other people,” Cruz’s father Jose Cruz said. “And when I had all those people that came up to me and said, ‘You know he saved my life, he truly saved my life,’ telling me my son was a hero, I told them they should do something nice every day, because my son gave his life for you to be able to do that.”
Timmy Cruz, 27, leaves behind his 4-year-old son Levi, a girlfriend he met when he was 13, and dozens of friends and co-workers who reached out to Cruz’s father days since the shooting. Levi turned four in February and the family marked the occasion with a trip to the bowling alley and a Spider-Man themed party.
Jose Cruz said his son always prioritized spending time with friends and family. In the days since his death, he found himself amazed by the number of people who approached him and told him stories about how his son helped out in times of need, like cutting someone’s grass after a spouse’s death.
A big family
Timmy Cruz grew up in a large family on the West Side of Cleveland with 10 other siblings, including a 10-year-old brother and a 15-year-old sister. Jose Cruz said his son bought his youngest brother a cellphone and put him on his plan so he could call if he ever needed anything.
His youngest two brothers, including one in U.S. Army bootcamp at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, are particularly struggling with their brother’s death.
“We don’t know what he’s going through because we can’t talk to him every day,” their father said.
The family went camping every year at East Harbor State Park. Timmy Cruz recruited more and more of his family to join in as the years went on, his father said.
He loved dirt bikes as a kid and motorcycles as an adult. He also loved going roller skating with his family at the United States of Roller Skating on Denison Avenue and Ridge Road. He ended up working there as a teenager, like his mother and father.
He balanced being a jokester and class clown, with taking care of his siblings, his father said.
Timmy Cruz graduated from Max Hayes High School and went to work with his father for more than three years as a bricklayer for Bricklayers Local 5 Ohio. He aspired to work in law enforcement. He wasn’t sure why, but said Timmy Cruz grew up around his father’s friends, many of them police officers in Cleveland, Linndale and the surrounding area.
