Police honor fallen officer
Marisa O’Neil
In the pre-dawn hours of March 12, 1995, Newport Beach Police Officer
Bob Henry pulled his patrol car into a 16th Street parking lot to
check on a suspicious vehicle.
Moments later, he was shot in the head during a struggle with the
car’s driver, a Garden Grove man despondent over a custody battle for
his child. The man then turned the gun on himself.
Henry, 30, died of his injuries a month later.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the shooting, the only one of
an on-duty officer in the Police Department’s history. Early this
morning, Newport Beach police officers -- some who knew Henry and
some who didn’t -- were expected to gather, pray and remember their
fallen comrade at the park that now bears his name.
“You think of all the people that stuff could happen to and it
wouldn’t have been him,” said fellow officer Randy Querry. “He was a
little stud. He held the academy record for years for push ups. He
did 220 in two minutes, or something like that. He showed up to
briefing every day eating a Power Bar.”
Querry was scheduled to work the graveyard shift the night Henry
was shot, but got the night off to play in the Orange County “Cop
Bowl” football game. Henry covered his shift.
“It was very difficult,” Querry said of hearing the news of
Henry’s shooting. “We were good friends and beat partners. We had a
lot of firsts together.”
Henry, whose third child was only four weeks old at the time of
the shooting, lay in the hospital for 33 days before he died. In the
days after his shooting, and then again after his death, his family,
including widow Patty Henry, and his fellow officers turned to each
other for support.
“We were drawn to his family,” said Sgt. Tom Fishbacher, a friend
of Henry. “They were just a wonderful source of support, if you could
imagine that; we’re trying to give them help and comfort and we walk
away feeling comforted by them.”
Community support for the department was also overwhelming,
Fishbacher said.
The shooting and Henry’s death hit the city hard, said Dennis
O’Neil, a City Council member at the time. It reminded people that
the public servants -- whose services many take for granted -- work a
very dangerous, unpredictable job.
“It just shook everybody to their souls,” O’Neil said. “It was
such a tragic and unnecessary and horrible loss of life of this
wonderful man with this wonderful family.”
In the years since his death, officers have gathered at 4 a.m.
every March 12 at Bob Henry Park, near where he was shot. There they
pray and tell stories about their fallen friend, Querry said.
And though he’s gone and the department has many new faces
patrolling the streets, Henry is never far from the hearts and minds
of officers, Fishbacher said.
“Bob didn’t just affect our lives, he’s had an impact on new
employees as well,” Fishbacher said. “They see the reality of the
type of work they’ve chosen. It’s not just someone in the academy
telling you what could happen; you see his picture in the briefing
room and work with people who knew him. That puts it in a very real
perspective.”
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