Line-of-duty Deaths
Seven officers of the VA Police have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty:
- Marvin C. Bland, age 34, was killed in an automobile accident on September 6, 1985, while responding to a fire alarm at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts.
- Mark S. Decker, age 31, and Leonard B. Wilcox, age 37, were shot and killed on January 31, 1986, while attempting to question a suspicious man at the Brecksville VA Hospital in Brecksville, Ohio. Both Decker and Wilcox were armed only with mace due to administrative guidelines. While the officers were talking with the man he pulled out a .45 caliber handgun and shot Officer Decker, killing him instantly. Officer Wilcox attempted to run for cover, but the suspect chased him before shooting him as well. The killer was sentenced to two life terms for the murders.
- Ronald Hearn, age 49, was shot and killed on July 25, 1988 at the Bronx VA Hospital in New York City. The alarm was set off when a man walked through the metal detector; when Hearn approached the man, he pulled out a gun and shot Hearn, who was wearing a vest but was shot between the two panels. At the time of Hearn's death VA Police were not supplied vests or firearms.
- Garry A. Ross, age 41, died from a heart attack on December 24, 1990 at the VA Medical Center in Washington, D.C.. Ross died after responding to a call of a mentally deranged patient, who assaulted him several times. Ross suffered a massive heart attack after he restrained the patient.
- Horst Harold Woods, age 46, was shot and killed on January 10, 1996, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Woods had approached a man kneeling beside his patrol car; when Woods approached him from the opposite side of the car, the man stood up, exchanged words with Woods, and then shot him in the back of his head as Woods turned away. The man was arrested later the same day. The suspect was arrested a short time later by Air Force Security Police Law Enforcement Officers, now called Security Forces from Kirtland Air Force Base, where he was found with "two extra fully loaded clips, an 18-inch bowie knife and a long-barreled Derringer loaded with two shotgun shells."
- Jose Oscar Rodriguez-Reyes, age 53, was shot and killed on April 24, 2002 while stationed at a gate at the VA Medical Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Rodriguez-Reyes was attacked by two men for unknown reasons and shot in the head and chest. The two attempted to steal Rodriguez-Reyes' service weapon but were unable to remove it from the holster. Rodriguez-Reyes was the first armed VA Police officer to be killed in the line of duty. Two suspects were arrested by the FBI. Charged with murder, the suspect who shot Rodriguez-Reyes was convicted in July 2006.
Read more about this topic: United States Department Of Veterans Affairs Police
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)