JACKSON — Hundreds of people, including law enforcement officers from across Mississippi, paid their respects on Saturday to the Pearl officer who died Tuesday in a shootout.

The Clarion-Ledger reported that Michael J. "Mike" Walter, 37, was laid to rest Saturday. He died in the shootout at Colony Park Apartments in Pearl.

The shooting happened when officers went to the apartment to arrest Carnell Gaines Jr. on charges of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl. Gaines also died in the shooting and two other officers, Dave McCarley and Shaun Terwilliger, were wounded.

Walter, who was originally from San Diego, leaves behind a wife, Jeanne, and his 11-year-old daughter, Bailey.

Hundreds also lined the streets Friday along the route of the procession that took his body from a Jackson funeral home to Pinelake Baptist Church in Flowood.

The officers knocked on the door of the apartment, but nobody answered so they asked the complex manager to let them inside. Gaines was in the back bedroom and fled into the bathroom, where the shooting occurred.

Gaines was still on supervised release from a previous charge. He was indicted on a federal charge in 2004 of being a convicted felon in possession of a gun. He was sentenced in 2005 to 2 1/2 years to be served at the same time as a burglary charge in state court in Hinds County. He was sent back to prison on a probation violation for a six-month sentence in March 2011.

Walter played pitcher in the minor leagues for the Houston Astros' organization from 1993 to 2000, and spent part of his last four seasons playing for teams based in Jackson. He joined the Pearl Police Department in February 2009 as a patrol officer and quickly climbed the ranks to become an investigator in October 2010.