Joseph Alu Jr., former Plantation police officer severely burned in tragic 1995 explosion, dies at 69, Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office says
A former Plantation police officer who became well-known after he was badly burned during a 1995 house explosion died on Dec. 24, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Joseph Alu Jr., 69, worked for decades at the Plantation Police Department. He later served in Palm Beach County from October 2017 until his retirement in February 2024, the office said in a social-media post.
His wife, Jody Alu, reported that he was forced to retire due to an illness, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“He was extremely friendly and extremely helpful,” she said to the Sun Sentinel. “I don’t know anybody that didn’t like him. He was just a very helpful person, a very nice person.”
Alu became known after a July 25, 1995, hostage situation, when he and Detective James O’Hara were dispatched to a Plantation home to try to rescue three girls being held by their mother’s estranged boyfriend, according to Miami Herald archives.
The suspect was brandishing a gas can and a machete, and he set off an explosion, the archives said. The boyfriend and two of the girls died, but the youngest sister escaped.
Alu suffered burns over 26% of his body while O’Hara was burned over 80% of his body, the archives said.
The incident led to the 1996 Alu-O’Hara Public Safety Act, which required law-enforcement agencies to provide officers who retired as a result of injuries the same level of health-insurance benefits in order to be eligible for certain federal funding, according to Congress’s website.
The Plantation Police Department did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comments about Alu.
About seven years after the explosion, Alu was critically injured again in a motorcycle accident and was briefly in a coma, the archives said.
He was participating in a charity motorcycle run on Sept. 22, 2002, from Miami to Key West. He was stopped on U.S. 1 when a Mustang ran into him from behind.
Alu then made headlines several years later for his working relationship and friendship with Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, according to the archives. Alu was a bodyguard for his wife, Kim Rothstein.
“I live a very dull, boring, uneventful, happy life,” Alu told the Sun Sentinel in 2010. “I don’t want to be interviewed.”
However, according to numerous reports, his life was neither dull nor uneventful.
Alu risked his life to protect people and his “heroism and dedication to his badge” will never be forgotten, his daughter, Samantha Alu, said in a statement to the Sun Sentinel.