City leaders, tearful relatives and hundreds of police officers from around the state flocked on Tuesday to the funeral of Baltimore police Det. Troy Chesley, a father of five with a “million-dollar smile,” who was shot to death last week on his doorstep.

Photos of Chesley flashed across television screens in the New Shiloh Baptist Church in West Baltimore as the crowd spilled out of the sanctuary to an overflow room nearby. Standing above Chesley’s casket, feet from a bed of flowers spelling out “T-Roy,” Commissioner Leonard Hamm said the slain detective “lived well, and he lived right.”

With his “million-dollar smile ... he could look at you and light up the room,” said Sgt. Osborne Robinson, speaking in a room half-filled with navy-clad police officers. “He befriended many people — not just those in blue.”

Chesley, 34, had just left duty early on the morning of Jan. 9 and was slipping a key in his front door when he was shot, according to court documents. Police caught up with suspect Brandon Grimes within hours at St. Agnes Hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for a gunshot wound.

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The public defender’s office won a gag order in court Friday banning police and attorneys from publicly commenting on the murder case. Hamm and other top police officials had detailed Grimes’ public criminal record in the media, noting in particular his 17 prior arrests. Hamm didn’t refer to Grimes Tuesday but, in fiery words and to steady applause, Gov.-elect Martin O’Malley did.

Counting off Grimes’ arrests one by one, O’Malley said “it is not right” that someone with such a past “should be allowed to take” an officer’s life.

“It is not right that in a city plagued by violence ... we should all too readily blame the police for doing their jobs,” he said. Chesley, he said, “served God by choosing to serve others.”

Chesley leaves behind three sons and two daughters.

Bagpipers and an honor guard stood with hundreds of saluting officers after the service as the flag-draped coffin lay in a tan hearse. Nearby North Avenue was a sea of flickering red and blue police lights; a procession led to Chesley’s interment at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens.

kcullinan@baltimoreexaminer.com