SAFER IN AFGHANISTAN THAN ON STATE STREETS
Father of KIA Marine slams justice system
Yarmouth Deputy Police Chief Steven Xiarhos, whose own son was killed in Afghanistan, voiced rage and frustration at the loss of another Marine — Kevin Quinn, a friend who made it home safe from two combat tours only to die here just days after his first child was born, in a head-on crash with a man fleeing from police.
“It’s safer right now in the valleys of Afghanistan than the streets of Massachusetts,” Xiarhos told me yesterday, slamming the courts that freed Mickey Rivera on reduced bail and left career criminal Thomas Latanowich free. Rivera was killed behind the wheel of the car that hit Quinn’s SUV. Latanowich is accused of ambushing and killing Yarmouth police Sgt. Sean Gannon. Emanuel Lopes, accused of killing Weymouth police Sgt. Michael Chesna, was free despite failing a drug test while on bail on drug dealing charges.
“We have a United States Army veteran shot to death on the streets of Weymouth. We have a young police officer, my officer, shot to death on the streets of Cape Cod,” Xiarhos said. “We have two Falmouth police officers shot and survive because of God and their brother and sister officers that saved them.”
Nine years ago, Kevin Quinn showed up at the Yarmouth police station to pay a visit to Steven Xiarhos after his son, Marine Cpl. Nicholas Xiarhos, was killed in Afghanistan.
The two had never met. But Quinn was a Marine.
“He came to the police station, all dressed up in his dress blues, and he gave me a flag that flew in Afghanistan,” recalled Xiarhos. “It’s what Marines do.”
The Gold Star father, like many vets across the
region, is reeling from Quinn’s death, coming on the heels of other violent deaths that might have been prevented by a judge’s actions.
Quinn, who served two combat tours as a Marine machine gunner in Afghanistan, came home to start an excavation business and marry Kara Sullivan, the girl of his dreams. Their daughter, Logan, was born Wednesday and Quinn was on his way home from the hospital just after midnight Saturday when Rivera, fleeing police at high speed, slammed into his SUV.
“And now, a career criminal kills a Marine who fought in Afghanistan, and my friend, served in Afghanistan with my son who died in Afghanistan, and now this young man comes home and is horrendously killed by a career criminal who never should have been on the streets. Same thing as the man that killed the officer in Weymouth. Same thing as the man that killed my officer.”
“We, as citizens, have to change this system because it is going to happen again. These criminals — there’s more like them on the streets,” Xiarhos said. “If you just got tougher with the laws that we have now, my life would be safer and so would yours, and Kevin Quinn and the driver who failed to stop and his passenger would all be alive today.”
Yesterday, Xiarhos visited the site where Quinn was killed, setting up a beautiful white cross another veteran made in memory of his son, Nicholas, and other fallen vets.
The Nicholas G. Xiarhos Memorial Foundation and the organization founded to honor those killed in action and their Gold Star families, Massachusetts Fallen Heroes, plan to raise money for Kevin’s wife and daughter. A GoFundMe site for the family had raised $196,847 as of 9 last night.
Quinn’s best friend Rob Dinan — also a former Marine — said many veterans have been stepping forward.
“Kevin’s gone, unfortunately, and he’s not going to be able to have the joy of seeing his daughter grow up,” Dinan said. “But at this point in time, instead of having one dad, she’s probably going to have a hundred.”