A DAY TO REMEMBER FALLEN PEACE OFFICERS
Last Sunday in September honours those who died in the line of duty
Tricia Kirkwood never met her father.
David Kirkwood was just a 21-year-old rookie constable with the Ottawa Police when, on July 11, 1977, he was shot and killed while assisting officers execute a warrant, for assault causing bodily harm, against Frederick Koepke, 22, at his Gladstone Avenue home.
Tricia was born eight months later.
That she never met her father has not, however, kept him from being an intensely central figure in her life. As a youngster, Tricia found Father’s Days difficult, as well as seeing friends and classmates grow up with fathers.
“It wasn’t like you didn’t have a dad, or you had a dad and he wasn’t around,” Tricia explains. “You had a dad, and from everything that everyone tells you, he was really excited to be a dad. So to know that that was there for you, and then not anymore, is hard.
“The date my dad was murdered,” she adds, “is burned into my brain.”
Tricia grew up hearing stories of her father — his love of horses, for example, or how badly he wanted to be a police officer — and seeing photos of her young, happy parents, so much in love together. She learned, too, of how she bears many of her father’s features and mannerisms. To this day, she can’t say for certain whether those similarities were comforting or painful for her mother, Dawna, who was 21 and married less than a year when David was killed.
Dawna never remarried, and forever carried her anger, hurt and sadness. She died of cancer in July at the age of 63.
“(My father’s death) was not something my mother ever made peace with,” says Tricia, “and it defined both of our lives. It was always very present — a year after, five years after, 40 years after …
“I know it was a different time back then, but I wish someone had dragged my mom kicking and screaming to therapy. For sure she had PTSD, and unresolved feelings about it, healthy or not. I assume that if that happened now, there would be a whole support system from the police community that just wasn’t there at the time.”
For more than four decades, the anniversary of her husband’s death was a terrible reminder for Dawna that refused to lessen with time, as she annually relived each minute of that 1977 day’s events with a vividness as fresh as when they happened.
“I don’t think the first July 11th and the 40th July 11th were any different for her,” says Tricia. Similarly, Dawna used to say how going to the September memorial was like attending a funeral. “It’s like the wound was fresh again, twice a year, every year.”
A year after David Kirkwood’s death, the Ottawa Police force inaugurated an annual memorial service for police officers killed in the line of duty, held on Parliament Hill on the last Sunday in September. That year, 12 officers, including Kirkwood and two corrections employees, had their names etched on glass panels on the Memorial Pavilion on Parliament Hill.
In 1998, the Canadian government proclaimed the last Sunday of September as Police and Peace Officers’ National Memorial Day, and five years later, in 2003, declared that flags on federal buildings, including the Peace Tower, would annually be flown at half mast. Today, the names of almost 900 peace officers are engraved on the memorial.
Tricia has attended each year’s ceremony, as had Dawna.
“It’s important to honour not just my dad, but everyone who has given their life in the line of duty,” Tricia says. “It’s important to remember their sacrifice.”
Sunday’s memorial is also important to Tricia because, absent tangible reminders of her father beyond photos and his police badge — No. 117, reflecting the date of his death — it is as much a part of his legacy as she is. “It’s a part of who I am. It’s the core of who I am. It’s the earliest and only real-world solid connection that I have to my dad, ever since I was six months old.”
So she will attend this Sunday’s ceremony as she has each previous year — for the first time without her mother — along with her husband, Josh, and their three children Hailey, almost 10, Hannah, 7, and David Joshua, or DJ, 2. And like Tricia before them, the three youngsters have grown up listening to stories about their grandpa Kirkwood.
“I believe in soulmates,” says Tricia, “and 40 years later, even when my mom was talking to my kids about grandpa Kirkwood, that intense love for him was always right at the surface. It never faded, and the kids knew that; they could feel that. And so we’ve all drawn a lot of comfort in knowing that my mom is with my dad, and he’s finally getting to be a husband, and she’s finally getting to be a wife, and they’re together. And one day he’ll get to be a dad, and he’ll get to be a grandpa, but for now they’re finally together and experiencing that life that they didn’t get here.”
This year’s peace officers’ memorial ceremony will add the names of four peace officers to its honour roll, including corrections officer Lesa Zoerb, who died last October in a highway collision in Saskatchewan, as well as three officers who died between 1905 and 1927. Visit www.cpa-acp.ca/memorial/ 2019-memorial-service-event for more details.
These are some of the Ottawa-area peace officers who have died in the line of duty:
HIRAM O’CALLAGHAN JAN. 12, 1928
Forty-three-year-old Provincial Traffic Const. Hiram F. O’Callaghan was driving southbound on Hwy. 16 from Ottawa to his home in Kemptville, at about 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 12, 1928 when he spotted an oncoming bread delivery truck and had to turn his front wheel to get his motorcycle out of a deep rut to allow the truck to safely pass. Icy road conditions caused his motorcycle to spin around and skid in front of the truck, however, throwing O’Callaghan about six metres. O’Callaghan, married and a father of six, and only with Ontario’s Department of Highways for eight months, was killed instantly.
MILES CAMPBELL JUNE 9, 1929
Miles Campbell, a constable with the Carleton County Police Department, was five days shy of his 30th birthday and three days away from getting married when, at about 4 a.m. on a Sunday, he pulled over a suspicious vehicle on Montreal Road near Green’s Creek in Gloucester. Campbell was standing at the driver’s window with his back to oncoming traffic when another vehicle collided with the rear of the stopped vehicle. The force of the impact threw Campbell more than 10 metres. He died at the doors of the Ottawa General Hospital.
JOHN MONTGOMERY JULY31,1931
Const. John Montgomery, formerly of the Department of Highway Motorcycle Patrol, was serving with the OPP’s Westboro detachment when he was killed in a head-on collision on July 31, 1931. Montgomery, a married 23-yearold Carleton Place resident and father of an infant son, was on his motorcycle when a car in front of him on Carling Avenue, near what is now Broadview Avenue, veered out of its lane to drive around a parked truck. When Montgomery attempted to do likewise, he was hit by an oncoming car. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Civic Hospital.
HAROLD DENT JUNE 20, 1940
Const. Hal Dent was with the Rockland detachment of the OPP when, on June 20, he received a phone call about a suspicious man in the Navan train station. When Dent approached him in the waiting room, the man, 52-year-old John Miki, who was on his way to Ottawa, pulled out a gun and shot Dent twice, once in the abdomen and once in his arm.
Dent died 50 minutes later, still on the floor of the station. His last words were “I am done. He shot me twice. He shot me through the stomach. That foreigner shot me. His name is Scott.” Dent left behind a wife and six-week-old son. The gunman — a transient wanted for a break and enter in Quebec the night before — was pursued by off-duty OPP officer Allan Stringer, who shot and killed him a short distance away.
THOMAS STONEMAN OCT. 29, 1945
Det. Thomas Stoneman and Const. Russell Berndt were responding to a call about three men possibly breaking into a car downtown at about 1 a.m. on the night of Oct. 24, 1945. When the three men were confronted by Stonemen, one, Eugene Larment, pulled out a revolver and shot Stoneman in the chest. Stoneman, 37, died five days later, leaving behind a wife and two children. Larment, meanwhile, was subsequently hanged for his crime — the last person in Ottawa to face the gallows.
The date my dad was murdered is burned into my brain. TRICIA KIRKWOOD, STORY, this page
GEORGE CONSTANTINEAU
NOV. 17, 1954
Const. George Constantineau, 39, was returning to the police station from the French Embassy on Sussex Drive, where he has been on duty as a motorcycle escort for visiting French Premier Pierre Mendès France. Crossing the Bytown Bridges spanning the Rideau River at Green Island — which only 12 hours earlier had been officially opened by the Queen Mother — Constantineau’s bike struck the cement curb of the island dividing north and southbound lanes. His bike somersaulted 34 metres, while Constantineau was thrown 23 metres, resulting in a fractured neck and skull, as well as internal and other injuries. He was taken to the General Hospital, where he died shortly before 8 a.m. He was survived by his wife and four children.
RONALD PITT
SEPT. 23, 1957
OPP Const. Ronald Pitt was shot three times by a pair of gunmen when, at about 5 a.m. on Aug. 24, 1957, on a residential waterfront street in Morrisburg, he approached the men about a car they were tampering with. Two of the bullets lodged in Pitt’s abdomen, the third nicked his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down. The suspects fled in Pitt’s car, abandoning it north of Iroquois. Pitt, meanwhile, was flown by helicopter from Cornwall General Hospital to the Montreal Neurological Institute, where he underwent a seven-hour operation to remove the bullets. Pitt, 34, had been in Canada a short time, arriving from Scotland the previous June, and had only been with the police force for six weeks. His new uniform, in fact, had just arrived on the day of the shooting. Two weeks later, his wife, Margaret, and two sons, Ronald Jr., 7, and Ian, 4, arrived in Canada from Scotland. Pitt died on Sept. 23, and was buried in his new uniform.
JEFFREY ARMSTRONG
MAY 13, 1963
Const. Jeffrey Armstrong was just 23 and in his first week of police duty when he was accidentally shot by a fellow rookie.
Armstrong and Const. Lester McPhee, 25, were in a locker-room on the fourth floor of police headquarters, preparing for a parade inspection, when McPhee noticed some dust on his .38 service revolver. As he removed the gun from its holster to clean it, it discharged, the bullet passing through Armstrong’s stomach and hitting his spine. Armstrong, about two metres away, grabbed his stomach, leaned against a locker and shouted his final words: “What have you done, Les?” before falling unconscious. He died 40 minutes later.
ROBERT MAKI
APRIL 4, 1966
OPP Const. Robert (Bob) Maki, 30, responded to a complaint of a man walking down a street and removing his clothes in Stanley’s Corners, west of Stittsville, on the afternoon of April 4, 1966. Upon his arrival, Maki, a 10-year veteran of the force, found a “very disturbed and agitated” 25-year-old David James Johnson, a part-time Carleton University student. After speaking with Johnson’s parents, Maki decided to take the young man to the Civic Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. With the Civic unable to take Johnson, Maki instead went to the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium, now the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, where, while waiting in an examination room, Johnson made a run for it. A struggle outside the hospital ensued, with Johnson getting Maki’s gun and shooting him three times. Maki was married with no children. Johnson was later found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity.
PETER KIRK
JUNE 9, 1968
OPP Const. Peter Kirk, a 32-year-old member of the Hawkesbury detachment, died at about 2:30 a.m. on June 9, 1968, while patrolling the old Highway 17 between L’Original and Alfred, an area known to residents as Blue Corners.
An eastbound convertible sports car driven by an 18-year-old Hawkesbury resident went out of control when a third car forced it to cross into the westbound lane, where it collided with Kirk’s blackand-white cruiser. The police car rolled twice before coming to a rest, on its roof, in a ditch. Kirk was killed in the collision, while the driver of the sports car suffered non-life threatening injuries when he was thrown from his car. The driver of the third car did not stop. Kirk was survived by his wife and two children, ages five and two.
DAVID TUCKEY
JAN. 21, 1970
Just three weeks after being promoted to the rank of sergeant, David Tuckey, a 15-year veteran of the Ottawa police, suffered a heart attack and collapsed as he entered court to testify in a traffic case. Married and a father of four, Tuckey was 37.
Five years earlier, on what was to be his final shift as a motorcycle traffic officer before taking holidays and, upon his return, being promoted to the morality division, Tuckey suffered a fractured skull in a collision with a car on Nicholas Avenue as he was returning to the police station. At the time, Ottawa’s was the only major police force in Ontario whose motorcycle officers didn’t wear helmets. Tuckey’s head injuries kept him off work for more than a year and a half and, unable to return to active duty, he was reassigned
to the court division.
ALAN THOMPSON
MARCH 31, 1975
OPP Const. Alan Thompson was killed on March 31, 1975 when the unmarked car he was driving was struck by a CP Rail freight train a couple of kilometres outside Kemptville. The 34-year-old officer and Kemptville resident was pursuing a speeding vehicle along Oxford Township Road 6 when the noon-hour collision occurred. The crossing had no warning lights or bells, while the view of the tracks at the crossing was partially obscured by trees and brush. An eight-year veteran of the force, Thompson was survived by his wife and two children, ages nine and six
DAVID KIRKWOOD
JULY11,1977
Const. David Kirkwood was a 21-year-old rookie with just four months’ service with the Ottawa police when he and his training officer accompanied two other officers to the Gladstone Avenue home of 22-year-old Frederick Koepke, who had an outstanding warrant for assault causing bodily harm. Koepke, armed, fired out a window, killing Kirkwood and starting a three-hour siege that involved more than 50 officers, six of whom suffered gunshot injuries. Kirkwood was survived by his wife of four months, Dawna, who was pregnant at the time. Kirkwood’s death inspired the Canadian Police and Peace Officers’ National Memorial.
KENNETH SWETT
JULY 17, 1981
OPP Const. Kenneth Swett, married and with two daughters ages 7 and 3, died on July 17, 1981, after his cruiser was involved in a headon collision on Hwy. 17 and burst into flames.
Swett, 30, a seven-year veteran with the Bells Corners detachment, was driving John Parker Doyle, a 49-year-old Nova Scotia man, to Doyle’s wife’s cottage in Cobden. A day earlier, Doyle, who had been hitchhiking from the Maritimes to the cottage, had been beaten and robbed of his clothes and $500 by a man with whom he’d been a passenger for a day. The attack on Doyle, with a steel bar, left head wounds requiring 30 stitches. The accident killed both Swett and Doyle, as well as 41-year-old Zbigniew Pawlik, of Ottawa, the driver of the other car.
RUSSELL O’CONNOR
SEPT. 7, 1983
Eighteen-year Ottawa police veteran Const. Russ O’Connor, 41, was responding to complaints of speeding cars in the east end of the city when he lost control of his Kawasaki KZ 1000 motorcycle and struck a median post on the Queensway. The Sept. 7, 1983 incident occurred at around 7:30 p.m. in the westbound lanes, about a kilometre east of the Parkdale Avenue exit. A coroner’s jury later determined the motorcycle’s tendency to wobble at moderately high speeds — O’Connor was reportedly driving at about 105 km/h at the time of the accident — and the helmet’s poor design, were the major contributing factors in O’Connor’s death. He was survived by his wife and three teenage children.
DAVID UTMAN
OCT 14, 1983
Nepean police Const. David Utman, 38, and a friend were taking a noon-hour coffee break at the Gourmet Fair restaurant at the Bayshore Shopping Centre on Oct. 14, 1983, when a man in the restaurant, 22-year-old Peter Michael Collins, approached the pair, wielding a revolver and berating the uniformed Utman. Collins, who four months earlier had escaped from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, told Utman that “Your time has come” and, as Utman attempted to calm Collins and get him to relinquish his gun, fired a shot over the constable’s head before shooting the officer in the chest. Utman died about 90 minutes later in the Queensway-Carleton Hospital. He left behind a wife and two sons, ages seven and four. Collins was arrested at a nearby home almost six hours after the incident. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He died in the Millhaven Institution of complications from untreatable bladder cancer in 2015, months after his application for compassionate release was denied.
ALAIN DESFORGES AND RICHARD JEAN
OCT. 24, 1993
Al Desforges, 30, and with the OPP for four years, was 23-yearold rookie officer Rick Jean’s coach officer when, on the afternoon of Oct. 24, 1993, the pair were responding to a call for assistance. For reasons unknown, their cruiser, its lights flashing, was hit broadside by an eastbound Via Rail train at a level crossing at St. Isidore and Dollard streets in Casselman. Both men died at the scene.
PHILIP SHRIVE
MAY 23, 2003
OPP Senior Const. Phil Shrive of the Renfrew detachment was fatally injured in a collision that occurred on Hwy. 17, near Renfrew, on May 16, 2003. A 29-year-veteran with the OPP, Shrive was westbound on the highway when he made a U-turn to stop an eastbound motorist for a traffic violation. As he turned his cruiser, it was hit on the driver’s side by a tractor trailer. Shrive died a week later in hospital. Married with four children, Shrive, an Arnprior resident, was 49.
JOHN FLAGG
SEPT. 20, 2003
OPP Senior Const. John Flagg, 55, died on the morning of Sept. 20, 2003, when the motorcycle he was driving was involved in a collision near Almonte. Flagg was in a highspeed pursuit of a Jeep that had been reported stolen. The Jeep, driven by 37-year-old John Arthur Barry, of Ottawa, crossed the centre line of March Road northeast of Almonte, clipping a pickup truck that then collided with Flagg ’s motorcycle. The Jeep subsequently crashed into a ditch after running over a spike strip placed across the road by police.
Flagg, married with three stepdaughters, was taken to the Almonte hospital, where he died. The following year, Barry was sentenced to a pair of concurrent six-year terms.
IRENEUSZ CZAPNIK
DEC. 29, 2009
Const. Eric Czapnik was a latecomer to policing, joining the Ottawa force in 2007, a month before his 49th birthday.
In the pre-dawn hours of Dec. 29, 2009, the husband and father of four was completing some routine paperwork in his car outside the emergency department of the Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital, when he was approached by a man. That man, discredited RCMP officer Kevin Gregson, 43, who was appealing his dismissal from the force, stabbed Czapnik in the neck. Paramedics who witnessed the attack wrestled Gregson to the ground, using Czapnik’s handcuffs to restrain him. Czapnik died about an hour later.