Shortly before 4 p.m. on May 8, word spread through the Mount Vernon District Police Station that something was happening in Sully. Mount Vernon officers quickly tuned their radios to the Sully police frequency. This was all they could do. They listened as 35 miles away a man in camouflage fired at comrades trapped in the parking lot of the Sully District Station.
The ambush by Michael Kennedy, 18, killed Det. Vicky Armel and Officer Michael Garbarino. The two were the first Fairfax police officers slain by an assailant in the 66-year history of the department.
Five weeks later, many officers at the Mount Vernon station still hear that radio chatter. “Anger,” said Det. Roger Siegel, describing the emotions he felt in response to the murders, “frustration, helplessness.”
“We heard the radio traffic from Sully Station,” said Officer Maureen McKeon, “and it was extremely difficult for us to hear it live when it’s happening 35 miles from us and we couldn’t be there to help.”
Officer Sean Brodrick said “being stuck” at the station was the worst part of the experience. “I remember going to [Officer] Harvey [Lyles] and saying, ‘We’ve got to go.’” But responding to save a fallen comrade would have meant disobeying orders and leaving his post. Descriptions of the suspect led many to conclude the incident could have been a terrorist attack, and other stations might be targets.
With Station Commander Mike Kline off-duty, Assistant Commander Shawn Bennett gave the order to harden the station. Officers were stationed on the roof, and barricades were placed around the parking lot. Under the circumstances, said Lieut. Frank Stecco, “It’s kind of tough to maintain focus.” But the officers of Mount Vernon controlled their thoughts and did their job, securing their own station until official word came that the shooting was an isolated incident.
“I was never so proud to be a Fairfax County police officer,” said Siegel, speaking of the hours following the shooting. “Because people did what they had to do. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true … to see the whole station work as a unit not only to secure the station but be willing to go out on the street had a major impact on me.”
THE MOUNT VERNON officers were able to wrench their thoughts from the shootings in Sully long enough to follow orders and protect their station. But as days and weeks passed, the images were impossible to ignore. When one officer in a group interview began describing Armel’s last moments, it became clear that almost every officer in the room had imagined his or her own vivid picture of exactly what happened at 3:52 on May 8 in Sully Station.
“We always know there’s danger associated with [the job],” said McKeon. “But walking out to your car in the parking lot-”
“In the police station,” added Officer Harvey Lyles.
“Its something we do every day,” said Stecco. “Go out to your car. And we feel totally safe in our parking lot.”
“Everyone here can relate,” said Siegel. “We’ve all sat there and punched out of our computer.”
“Thinking about what you’re going to do that weekend,” said Stecco.
McKeon said that now when she leaves the station, she scans the parking lot and the trees.
Siegel recalled a recent gas stop he had made at the Sully station. He had to fill up his squad car in the parking lot. He said he found himself checking the rooftops and the trees as he stood beside his car. “I was actually feeling extremely anxious,” he said. “I’ve been in the police department 23 years and that was a feeling I’d never had before. I think it was unique for all of us.”
Mckeon said she has been having nightmares. In the dreams, her gun won’t fire.
LA VERNE Harley, the Community Engagement Coordinator, at the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing in D.C., works as a liaison between those affected by murders, the police and service providers who can help them cope with the trauma. She said the officers were experiencing “secondary trauma … They don’t have to be there to experience secondary trauma,” Harley explained. “That’s the unusual thing about it. It happens if you hear it, if you see it, any kind of way … They begin to visualize what went wrong.”
Harley said that in her experience, police officers are particularly vulnerable to feelings of guilt and helplessness after exposure to a homicide. “99 percent of the time, whatever they were doing, they were somewhere being the best that they could be. [But because of their jobs, police officers] tend to relive. ‘If I had done this. If I had done that. If I had been there ten minutes earlier.’”
Harley said recovering from these feelings can also be more difficult for police officers because of their role in society. “That’s even harder for them. They have to work [regardless]. They don’t work based on their feelings ... We just think they’re superheroes and that they go on and have no feelings, have no doubts, whatever.”
“IT’S ALSO important that people who have experienced the loss of a police co-worker support each other,” said Harley. “A lot of people think they’re losing it.” Harley said it may be hard for civilians to convince police officers that their feelings are normal, that they are not going crazy. But when one officer tells another he feels the same way, the feeling becomes more normalized.
“We see grief and death very frequently in this job,” said Lyles, “and I hate to say we’re hardened, but we think we can handle the emotional part, until something like this happens.”
“When this happened, no one had a clue how to cope,” Siegel said. But in discussing these feelings, Siegel and the other officers were demonstrating that they did have some of those coping tools.
Siegel, who is president of the Fairfax County Police Association, praised the response from the department in supporting all its officers. “They’re going to the extreme to make sure that everybody is getting taken care of if they need it,” Siegel said. “It’s very, very hard for a lot of us to say, ‘Hey I need some help.’”
THE OFFICERS were also able to count on more than one another to survive the tragedy in Sully. All of them described a tremendous wave of support from the community that immediately followed the shooting and has continued.
Tish Howard, the principal of Washington Mill Elementary, was making her long commute home from work on the day of the shooting. “These officers left home today with every intention to go back home,” she said she was thinking. “I thought about all the opportunities missed to say ‘thank you,’ ‘I love you.’” Howard called her own children when she reached home.
In the car, she reflected on the officers who had visited her school. “We always tell the kids, ‘Say thank you to the officers.’ It’s such a pat thing to say.” She decided she would find a better way to say thanks. The next day, she asked every student in the school to make a card for the Mount Vernon police officers. Many teachers took precious time from their SOL preparation to give students the opportunity to make the cards.
“I thought this was a good way to face the violence and do something proactive,” said Howard. On May 11, she recruited a fifth grade student, Julian Pelkey, to help her deliver the letters. She estimates they had a pile of about 300.
Bennett and another officer received the letters at the station. “They were very touched,” said Howard. “I was amazed.” Within hours, the walls of the station were lined with letters. Weeks later, many were still there, and officers could quote their favorites.
“[The letters] meant a lot to me,” said McKeon. “On my breaks I just go out to the library and read them.”
.“That propped us up when we were down,” said Lyles.
AND IT was only one of the ways the community showed its support. Ginger Krup has been vice-chairman of the Mount Vernon police Citizen’s Advisory Council (CAC) for four years. She was called in to help make sandwiches for officers barricaded in the station on May 8.
She said the entire CAC membership was eager to support their local officers. “The response was just amazing, and people just jump into action. They’re always there when we need them, always. They have never, never disappointed us … It was overwhelming the stuff that they brought,” Krup said. The Mount Vernon CAC collected dessert donations to supply both officers’ funerals. They also collected funds to help the officers’ families.
And the community response did not stop with the CAC. “Before, people would only have contact with the police when they needed a cop,” said Krup. “Now, when [the police] ride by my neighborhood, you see people waving to them. They want to know their names … I think people now are genuinely concerned about how [the police officers] are doing.”
All five officers interviewed said they have been approached since the shootings. Brodrick described trying to walk into his own home and having his way blocked by a neighbor he had never met. The man wanted to shake his hand.
Siegel said many people would cry as they thanked him. “You can’t help it,” he said. “Your eyes start welling up.”
“You have to put your eyes down and hold the tears back,” agreed Lyle.
“You have a tendency to get jaded after a couple years,” Siegel added, “but stuff like this, it just melts you.”
The officers described the two funeral processions as the most dramatic demonstration that the community shared their pain and appreciated their service. For each, the road was lined with people standing at attention, holding flags and saluting. Many parents brought their children.
“Being in the procession and seeing all the people by the road waving. That was very emotional for me,” Lyles said.
“It gave you goose bumps,” Brodrick added. “You can’t imagine the amount of people…” He described a funeral procession he had participated for a murdered officer in Orlando. He said the only people beside the road were firemen and drivers forced to pull over.
“For me I was just impressed with the public’s response,” said Lyles, “the citizens in the Mount Vernon area’s response. The people that would come up to you and thank you for what we do and realize that we were still in mourning and in pain and give us all the support that we need.”
BUT the newfound appreciation from the community in no way cancels out the tragedy that inspired it. “There is no silver lining to this,” said Siegel. “Maybe there’s an enhanced feeling of camaraderie … but there is no silver lining. I mean, two of our officers have died … this is just bad.”
“I expected to go through retirement without losing an officer,” Stecco said. “You had a feeling of invincibility and that’s gone forever.”
“It’s like the line you cross,” added Brodrick, “and what you cross the line, it’s just done.”
After the murder of two of their comrades, the officers of Mount Vernon will never patrol a beat, investigate a crime scene, or even walk through their own parking lot, without being aware that their job could get them killed.
“We understand that our job is dangerous and there are some people out there that are bent on doing wrong and we’ve got to always be reminded of that,” said Lyle.