University of Houston police officer dies in line of duty

This is always a horrible thing to have happen, but it's even worse when it happens on Christmas Eve:

A University of Houston police officer died Friday morning after she apparently lost control of her police unit and crashed into a tree.

Twenty-four-year-old Ann O'Donnell is the first UH Department of Public Safety officer to die in the line of duty.

O'Donnell was responding to a disturbance early this morning at the Wendy's across Scott Street from Robertson Stadium when she lost control of her cruiser and crashed into a tree in front of a residence on North MacGregor near Faculty, quite literally only a few hundred feet from where I was sleeping.

O'Donnell had been an officer only since November 2009. By all accounts, she loved her job and was good at it. "Very personable, very excited, starting her career and really looking forward to what she was doing and had a firm desire to serve the public in any way that she could," UH Police Chief Malcolm Davis said.

The official University of Houston press release is here. My heart goes out to Officer O'Donnell's family, as well as the entire University of Houston Police Department.

Galveston blogger Breck Porter has more.