By Isis Simpson-Mersha | isimpson@mlive.com
FLINT, MI — The streets in downtown Flint were blocked off as law enforcement officials and friends gathered to show their respects and family members shared their thoughts and memories to celebrate the life of a fallen police captain.
“My dad was larger than life. He was huge. His presence was so big.”
Those words from Bailey Ramirez resonated with everyone at her father’s memorial service as well as those who got to have a relationship with him that also knew them to be true.
A memorial service to celebrate the life of Flint Police Capt. Collin Brevik Birnie was held on Friday, Feb. 11 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. A livestream of the event was held at the Capitol Theatre where friends, community members and an overflow of law enforcement officials filled the seats.
The service began with a hymn, followed by an anthem, opening prayer and reading of scriptures.
It set the tone to discuss Birnie’s life and the tremendous impact he left on the law enforcement community, the city of Flint and his family.
He died on Friday, Feb. 4, after leaving his job at the Flint Police Department when his Chevy Tahoe was hit head-on by a Chevy Traverse on Elms Road, between Mt. Morris and Frances roads, in Mt. Morris Township, Police Chief Michael Veach said in previous MLive reports.
Related: Leaving his Flint police shift for home, captain dies in head-on collision Friday
The collision happened while Birnie was headed north on Elms Road about 6 p.m. Friday, Veach told MLive-The Flint Journal.
Birnie was pronounced deceased after he was transported to a local hospital.
The 16-year-old driver of the Chevy Traverse, who was headed south on Elms Road when the crash took place,
The incident is still under investigation.
Born on May 4, 1968 in Ann Arbor, Birnie was an avid hunter, fisherman, possessed a distinct laugh and was dedicated to his community.
But he was so much more than those descriptors.
“It’s hard to put into words, the feeling, the feeling of my dad was to me was protection, and comfort and love,” Ramirez, Birnie’s youngest daughter, said at the service. “The safety you feel as a child in your dad’s arms is something I had the privilege of never growing out of. I felt so undeniably safe in his arms.”
Ramirez recounted the last time she got to communicate with her father and relished in the words they exchanged.
“I was doing field work in the basement in an old building and I felt scared being there by myself,” she said. “My first thought was my dad and how brave he would be because he isn’t scared of anything and how much I wish he had been there with me.
“I sent him a video message back and forth, telling him I was scared and we laughed about how someone so strong could raise such a sissy,” said Ramirez, with those gathered erupting in laughter. “I never would have thought that would be my last conversation with him. I’m thankful for that creepy basement now that made me reach out to my dad.”
Marista Dryden, Birnie’s eldest daughter, told the crowd that he loved with a fierceness that was obvious to anyone who saw him look at or heard him talk about his family.
Birnie could be heard with his boisterous cheers in the stands at his daughters’ sporting events, including Dryden’s pom pom performances and Ramirez’s swim meets.
“He loved watching us succeed at what we loved,” Dryden said, including her achievements in skeet shooting lessons.
Dryden shared about their hunting tradition: the daddy-daughter Christmas tree hunt, established in 1994, where the pair would stock their car with chocolate milk and corn beef hash to trudge through the woods on a mission to find the best Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree.
“Grief is all the love that we have that we were never able to give. The amount I still have left for my dad is so unfathomably great,” Dryden said. “The pain is unbearable. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on in a world that doesn’t have him in it anymore.
“I will miss him the rest of my life and nothing will ever fill the hole in where he is supposed to be. I can only hope, because he’s touched as many lives as he did, that I’ll see pieces of him in others forever.”
From his daughters, to his wife and friends, Birnie seemed to light up everyone’s life with his presence.
Birnie and Tina began their story of love as teenagers at Carman High School.
Their love blossomed into decades of marriage during which they would start a family and stick together through tough times like his deployment to the Gulf War in the early 1990s.
Related: See moving video tribute to fallen Michigan police captain
Flint Police Chief Terence Green said Birnie’s sincerity and honesty moved the city’s department forward.
“This department is currently heartbroken because we lost such a dynamic leader,” Green said. “You can never replace a Collin Birnie, you can only cope with it.”
The police chief said Birnie was committed to the department and the entire Flint community.
“He was committed to the mission of the police department in bridging the gap between the community and the police department,” Green said.
That was evident in how the outpouring messages of love for the Birnie flowed from community leaders in north Flint and others, the police chief said.
At the Flint Police Department, Birnie was the Patrol Bureau commander, the Bomb Squad commander, Tactical Team commander, Lead Firearms instructor as well as numerous other duties at the department over the course of his 26-year career.
Green said Birnie had the opportunity to retire within the last year but he wanted to see two projects through before making that move, a testament to his dedication.
Prior to his law enforcement career, Birnie served in the U.S. Marines from 1988-92 during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.
Timm Rye, a friend of Birnie’s for several years, watched the livestream of the service at the theatre.
“We just kind of hit it off,” Rye said. “Anybody who hung out with Collin, he just made you feel like the most important person around. He was full of life and you wanted to be around this guy because he was such a warm person.”
Rye and Birnie met at a local gym and often took a men’s fitness class together.
“Knowing that we’re not going to see him again – none of us can believe that this has happened,” Rye explained.
Terry Pickard met Birnie through his job, where he would often see the captain in the community and at different events.
“He cared about our community and always had a smile on his face,” Pickard said. “I wanted to come pay my respects for him, but as well as all the other law enforcement officers that I know worked with him on a daily basis and how they’re hurting right now. I figure, support the family and other officers in law enforcement.”
In Ramirez’s closing remarks, she shared how she ends her prayers, which now includes her directly addressing her dad.
“I now have the strongest guardian angel that ever existed,” said Ramirez, as she choked through tears. “I used to always start my prayers with ‘hi God.’ Now, I start my prayers with ‘hi God, hi dad.’ ”