Hundreds of firefighters attend graduation of fallen colleague’s daughter [Video]

• Tory Carlon was gunned and passed away two days before his daughter’s graduation.
• Joslyn was overcome with her emotions, grieving over her father’s demise.
• But for a few moments there, she might have felt comfort from hundreds of her dad’s colleagues who showed up to support her milestone.

In one of her biggest steps in life, Joslyn Carlon did it without her dad by her side, but hundreds of proxies showed up.

As Joslyn marched on her graduation day without her dad, Tory — who was gunned at LA Country Firefighter station and passed away just two days before that — hundreds of firefighters escorted her to show support to their lost colleague.

Joslyn’s “Fire Family” has “dropped everything we were doing in our personal lives and came down here to show our support.” 

“On Tuesday, we lost a beloved member of our family,” Battalion Chief Nick Berkuta said during the event, according to The Santa Clarita Valley Signal. “His daughter is graduating today from Saugus High, and we as the Fire Department family are here in place of Tory, because he can’t be here.”

As a way of support, Nick called hundreds of firefighters. At the event’s entrance, the firefighters lined at both sides while Joslyn was marching, and they all together cheered as she walked across the stage, wearing her father’s fire jacket.

According to LA County Fire Department Chief Daryl Osby, the suspect was another firefighter engineer from LA County Fire Station 81, who was not supposed to work that day and “for whatever reason, came back to the fire station … and confronted on-duty personnel.”

After the incident, the suspect fled to his home which is 10 miles away. When deputies arrived, the house was on fire and an injured person, appearing to have suffered a gunshot on the head, was found in a small pool in the residence, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Brandon Dean reported.

According to the Associated Press, the suspect and Tory — a 44-year-old father of three — appeared to have “some workplace ‘beef’” stemming from a longstanding dispute, the lieutenant said.

As for Joslyn, her graduation rite was a bittersweet moment. She had missed her dad, but the presence of his friends all there to support her could be enough at the moment.

Source: PEOPLE.com