Slain officer came from family of public servants

Associated Press

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 | 1:27 p.m.

Metro Officer Igor Soldo, one of two police officers killed in an ambush Sunday in Las Vegas, had dreamed as a child of going into law enforcement, relatives.

"He was a wonderful child, a wonderful husband, a wonderful father," Soldo's mother, Sirli Soldo, told the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star.

The 31-year-old Soldo was having lunch at a CiCi’s pizza buffet about five miles northeast of the Strip when he and fellow officer Alyn Beck, 41, were gunned down. Police say another person at a nearby Wal-Mart was fatally shot. The two assailants – a husband and wife – died in what police initially described as a suicide pact after the shootings .

Igor Soldo had been planning to return to Lincoln in a few weeks to celebrate his son's first birthday with family and friends. Instead, his parents flew to Las Vegas the day after his death.

As a child, Igor read books about the FBI and criminal interrogation techniques. His family immigrated to Lincoln from war-torn Bosnia in 1995 when he was 13.

He learned English and graduated from Lincoln Southeast High in 2000 and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004.

From 2003 to 2006, he worked part time as a correctional officer in the Lancaster County jail. His father, Pero Soldo, told the Lincoln Journal Star that his son met his future wife, Andrea Soldo, during that time. She also was a correctional officer at the jail.

Igor Soldo moved to Las Vegas in 2006 when he landed a full-time position with Metro.

Soldo's older brother Robert and his wife are both police officers in Beatrice, Neb.

Pero Soldo said Igor Soldo and his brother got interested in criminal justice at a young age, partly because Pero Soldo was a fire chief in Bosnia and one of his son's uncles was a police officer.

"They were around uniforms all the time. They loved it," Pero Soldo said.