HUNTSVILLE – Outside the death chamber was an unusual scene for an all too familiar event.

At least 100 policemen and sheriff’s deputies from across the state standing in support a fallen officer’s widow and seeing justice through.

 “We’re certainly trying to send a message to those people that choose to harm police officers that we will not be assaulted this way and that we will provide justice,” said Lowell Cannaday, former Irving Police Chief.

They came to witness Michael Rodriguez’s execution for the murder of Irving policeman Aubrey Hawkins on Christmas Eve 2000.

He is the first of the notorious Texas 7, a gang of prison escapees, captured in a nationwide manhunt, after they murdered Hawkins during a robbery at a sporting goods store.

Hawkins was shot 11 times.

Then run over with his own patrol car.

Rodriguez, 45, waived his appeals and volunteered to die.

He ordered a heavy final meal, five courses beginning with fried chicken breast, preferably spicy, grilled pork steak with grilled onions, a loaded bacon cheeseburger, fresh garden salad with French dressing and French fries with ketchup.

The meal came at 4:00 p.m. after Rodriguez made a few final phone calls. It’s uncertain with whom he spoke.

Then at 6:02 Thursday night, prison guards unlocked his cell and escorted a few steps down the hall to the death chamber, a small brick room painted green, about the size of a suburban master bathroom.

A clock hangs on one wall and a gurney stands in the middle bearing a clean white sheet and brown leather straps. Places for an individual’s arms shoot out from both sides of the table.

At 6:03 p.m., Rodriguez was strapped to the gurney.

WFAA was among the five media witnesses. We walked up the stairs to the infamous Walls Unit and into a side office where a prison guard asked us to empty our pockets. After he patted down each of us, he then passed a metal detecting wand around our bodies.

“Cell phones, guns and knives have to be left here,” he said.

After a few minutes, we walked down another long hallway, through a heavy steel door and out into a lush garden with flowers, monkey grass, and other plants lining a sidewalk.

Through three barbed wire gates, we entered another steel door off the courtyard and walked into what amounted to a large walk-in closet.

On the other end was a glass wall, a set of prison bars, and Rodriguez, on his back, strapped to the gurney.

He was quietly singing a hymn easily heard in our room by a microphone hanging from the ceiling over his body.

Others were already in this viewing room when we entered. Lori Hawkins, the officer’s widow, Rodriguez’s former sister-in-law, two Irving policemen, Lt. Dennis Norton, Lt. Jeff Spivey, along with three other witness Lori Hawkins asked to attend.

Rodriguez refused to allow his family to watch.

A reporter for the Associated Press joined WFAA-TV and a prison representative behind the victim’s family peering in on the condemned’s final moments.

We were struck at how much weight he has gained since the last image of his booking photo after being captured.

“Do you have a final statement,” the warden asked.

“Yes, I do,” Rodriguez replied.

Tilting his head to the side, looking into our viewing room, he began.

It was 6:10 p.m.

“I know this in no way makes up for all the pain and suffering I gave you,” he said. “I am so sorry. My punishment is nothing compared to the pain and sorrow I have caused.”

Strapped to the gurney, it sounded sincere.

 “I’m not strong enough to ask for forgiveness because I don’t know if I’m worthy,”he continued.

The two Irving police officers stood stoic and straight-faced.

The only emotion came from Hawkins’ widow, Lori. She was visibly shaken and at several points wiped away tears.

“Please, Lord forgive me,” Rodriguez said looking through the window at the witnesses. “I have done some horrible things. I ask the Lord to please forgive me. I gained nothing, but just brought sorrow and pain to these wonderful people.”

He finished minutes later and said “I am ready to go Lord. Thank you.”

Rodriguez started singing quietly.

The solution had started flowing.

The lethal dose began at 6:13 p.m.

Rodriguez closed his eyes.

He made sounds similar to snoring but it’s said to be an effect of the drugs.

At 6:18 p.m., a man in a black suit with pinstripes entered the death chamber. Rodriguez was not moving. His head tilted slightly toward us.

The man, with a stethoscope around his neck, felt Rodriguez’s neck several times trying to detect a pulse.

He put the stethoscope in his ears, pulled the sheet down, and started listening to his chest for a pulse.

After a minute or so, he looked up at the wall and announced “6:20.”

A second man repeated “6:20.”

It was Rodriguez’s official time of death.

The large steel door behind us opened and we paused to let Lori Hawkins and the other witnesses exit first.

In less than 20 minutes, using $86.08 of lethal drugs, Rodriguez was declared dead, the eighth inmate Texas has executed this year. The second one this week.

Lori Hawkins walked out of the Walls Unit and down the stairs to a sea of support, law enforcement, most in uniform, from more than a dozen agencies as far away as the panhandle and the Rio Grande Valley, all wearing ribbons remembering her husband.