‘A peach of a human being’
Fallen officer named Big of the Year
It was heartbreaking and wonderful all at once to see the 12-year-old Cape Cod boy named Rylee last night honoring his Big Brother, fallen Yarmouth police Sgt. Sean Gannon.
Rylee wore a button-down blue plaid shirt and tie. He shook hands and talked with Gov. Charlie Baker. He hugged Gannon’s parents and Yarmouth police Chief Frank Frederickson.
And Rylee was on stage when Gannon’s parents accepted the “Big of the Year” award given posthumously to their slain son at the Sheraton Boston last night. It is the highest honor given by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay.
Sean’s father, Patrick Gannon, recalled last night that not too long ago, Gannon and his mom, Denise Morency Gannon, were talking and she asked him, now that he’d been a police officer for several years, why so many people go down an unfortunate path and what stops them from going down a better one.
“As Sean thought about that,” Patrick Gannon said, “he felt that a big piece of the challenge we have in our society is the demise of the family unit.”
Gannon’s mother rested her hand on Rylee’s shoulder and wiped away her tears.
Sean Gannon, 32 and married, was shot and killed three weeks ago while searching for a violent career criminal, as part of a team serving a warrant in Barnstable. Gannon’s K-9 partner, Nero, is recovering after being shot.
Rylee and Gannon were matched through the “Bigs in Blue” program three years ago. At Gannon’s wake, Rylee told the fallen officer’s mother that he wants to be a police officer like her son when he grows up.
Baker himself became a Big Brother to an 11-year-old boy when he was a college freshman.
Over the next two decades, Baker said, he spent a big part of his life with his Little Brother. The boy was a handful, Baker recalled, but he graduated from high school and then college and business school with honors. Baker was the best man at his wedding.
“I still consider it to be one of the best things I ever did,” Baker said.
Over the last few weeks, Baker said he’s learned a lot about Gannon.
“He was the kind of young man that you would want as a son, that you would want as a friend, that you would want as a colleague, that you would want your daughter to bring home,” Baker said. “Just a peach of a human being.”
Gannon and Rylee were “like two peas in a pod,” said Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO Wendy Foster. “These two really loved each other,” Foster said. “You don’t have to be a hero to be a ‘big’ but undeniably, Sean Gannon was a hero.”
After Gannon was killed, Baker called the officer’s parents and he repeated what he told them last night.
“In many respects, kids are a reflection of their parents, for better or for worse,” Baker said, “and I said to both Patrick and Denise that their son, Sean Gannon, was a spectacular young man and that they, as his mom and dad, should be enormously proud of the child they raised.”
Frederickson said Gannon would tell him, “I’m in a good place. I am under the mentorship of the biggest big brother of all.”