A memorial of red and white flowers and blue ribbon with the wording ‘Hero’ grew on top of a cruiser outside the Waltham Police Department on Thursday, while community members stopped by with lunch and other donations.

Less than 24 hours before the outpouring of community support, Paul Tracey, a 28-year veteran of the department, drove the cruiser for the final time, to a detail site on Totten Pond Road.

Tracey’s career in which he saved and changed countless lives came to an abrupt end when suspect Peter Simon drove into the detail site, killing him and National Grid worker Roderick Jackson, 36, of Cambridge.

Officers and utility workers packed Waltham District Court for Simon’s arraignment early Thursday in which the judge held the suspect without bail on two counts of manslaughter and a slew of other charges.

“We just want to thank the Waltham community for the tremendous outpouring for our brother Paul,” Jim Tracey said of his brother while speaking to reporters outside court. “He was a tremendous husband, father, uncle, and brother, and loved by everybody in the community. Anybody who knew him, his laughter, his compassion. It will be missed.”

Tracey’s notable achievements were recognized near and far.

Gov. Charlie Baker honored Tracey with a citation at the State House in 2018, weeks after the officer, off duty and on family vacation, helped save the life of a woman who overdosed on drugs on a Cape Cod beach, Boston 25 reported at the time.

Closer to home, Zackary Malerba, a 2019 graduate of Waltham High School, said if it wasn’t for Tracey and his wife Kristin Tracey, a school resource officer in the city, “I would never have gone through high school and be where I am today.”

Whenever Tracey visited the school, he’d be eager to speak with students having a rough day, Malerba told reporters outside the police department. “It changed a lot of us.”

Tracey’s passion in giving back to the community included two unsuccessful campaigns for a City Council seat, in 2019 and just last month.

“I’m not afraid to say that I am from Waltham and know the history very very well. I attended the schools and have been employed here most of my entire adult life. I did not move or come here with opinions or views to make Waltham a community it’s not, like a Somerville or a Cambridge,” Tracey told Patch in October.

“Waltham is a very desirable community to live in,” he continued, “and it needs elected representatives who are not afraid to represent the very people who live, work and contribute here on a daily basis, time and time again.”

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Resident Meredith Macivor said she didn’t know Tracey personally, but she wanted to stop by the police department Thursday to drop a bouquet of flowers on top of his cruiser as a sign of support.

Whenever she saw him around town, he had a smile on his face, she told reporters.

“It just brings tears,” Macivor said of Tracey’s death. “We never want anything to happen to them. They put their lives on the line but you don’t expect it.”

A Waltham police officer lays flowers on the police cruiser of Officer Paul Tracey outside Waltham Police Department. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)