# New commish stands in solidarity after Hub cop tragedy



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

By *Michele McPhee* 

The Beat
Boston Herald Police Bureau Chief

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

*T*here are many ways a police officer can be killed in the line of duty. 
A flash of gunfire. Fatal fisticuffs with a violent suspect. A fiery end to a high-speed chase. 
But maybe for Boston police Officer Denise Corbett - who was found in front of her suburban home Sunday with a gunshot wound that may have been self-inflicted - her line-of-duty death was a slow, painful process. 
The result of emotional wounds rather than bloody ones. 
On Oct. 28, 1991, Corbett was a rookie police officer when she responded to a horrific crime scene, gruesome even for the most hardened cop.

 She and her sergeant were on Eastbourne Street in Rosindale interviewing Thomas L. Shay about a device that his son, and namesake, had planted under his car while two bomb squad cops investigated the mysterious black box nearby.


Then came the explosion.

Corbett was pelted with debris but still managed to call an ambulance for the critically wounded bomb squad officers, Jeremiah Hurley and Frank Foley. Both of them were begging her to tell their families that they loved them.

"Frank was leaning up against the fence and Jerry was almost under the truck," Corbett would tell jurors deciding the fate of bombers Thomas Shay Jr. and Albert Trenkler in 1993. "It was really bad, there was blood everywhere.

"They wanted us to tell their children that they loved them and their wives that they loved them," Corbett testified. "They wanted to know how each other were doing, and they wanted us to leave because they thought the bomb was still underneath them.

"Jerry thought the bomb was still under the car," she said.

Corbett described how someone handed her a towel, and she did her best, unsuccessfully, to save Foley's eye with pressure to his mangled face. Her sergeant, Thomas Creavin, held Hurley's wrist in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. The entire time, Hurley kept asking, "How's Frankie? How's Frankie?" Creavin would remember.

When the ambulance came and transported the two cops, Corbett collected their gun belts and sat in her cruiser, "until someone found me," she said.

Hurley's heartbreaking plea to have Corbett assure his family of his love would prove to be his last words. He would die at 7:22 p.m. that night. Foley lost his eye.

Corbett would remember his painful end in court in haunting words: "Jerry lost his hand. Frank's face was falling apart."

The image is unbearable. Perhaps it became too much for Denise Corbett.

Thousands of cops formed a blue line at Hurley's funeral. Foley, though retired, is still spoken about in the reserved tone used when speaking of heroes.

And it should be that way for Denise Corbett as well. She served our city while raising five kids. No one knows what finally took her, but she deserves the dignity of a full honor guard funeral.

Police Commissioner Ed Davis proved he was a cop's cop when, within minutes of his swearing in yesterday, he asked those assembled to bow their heads in memorial to the fallen officer.

"I hope that Officer Denise Corbett's family knows that we mourn with them and offer whatever help we can give in their time of grief," Davis said. Corbett's husband, also a Boston cop, has already received his comrades' support. 
 "We all expect our police officers to be superheroes with guns and badges," one BPD cop told me yesterday. "But at the end of the day, we have the same worries, making sure our kids are OK, whether our bills are paid. 
"We suffer too," the cop said. "People forget that."


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## Mitpo62 (Jan 13, 2004)

This is a horrible tragedy for all involved, brother/sister officers, husband, children, and friends. It is surely hoped that Denise will receive full honors.....she certainly deserves it!


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