February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
One of them was Irish American.
Detectives Patrick Rafferty and Robert Parker died Friday night while attempting to apprehend a repeat felon who was attempting to steal his own mother’s car.
The accused man, Marion Legere, managed to get his hands on Det. Parker’s gun and opened fire, striking the two detectives from Brooklyn’s 67th Precinct. With his dying breath, Rafferty managed to get off a shot that wounded Legere and aided in his apprehension and arrest.
Parker managed to call in the fact that Legere’s mugshot was on the dashboard of the car he and Rafferty had been on patrol in.
Rafferty, a decorated 15-year veteran of the force, and who was just 39, was waked Monday in East Islip, L.I. He was described by fellow cops and friends as a man who lived first for his family, then for his job.
Det. Rafferty is survived by his wife, Eileen, and three children, Kara, Kevin and Emma.
“We’re really quite crushed by it, but we’ve got to do our best. It’s the Irish way: Great sorrow, great joys,” the slain detective’s brother, Bill Rafferty, told the Daily News.
Legere faces a double murder charge and is being prosecuted by the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.
In a statement, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said even as the officers killed in the World Trade Center attack three years ago were being honored “we are reminded by the deaths of Det. Robert Parker and Det. Patrick Rafferty that our police officers are prepared to give their lives in the day-to-day protection of the people of New York.”
The brutal slaying of the two detectives has raised a renewed storm over the death penalty in New York State.
A court ruling has currently placed a block on death sentences in the state.
“This was a court ruling on procedures,” Al O’Leary, spokesman for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, told the Echo this week.
“Our president, Patrick Lynch, believes that the death penalty should be applied in cases where law enforcement officers are murdered and this case is clearly one where the death penalty should apply.”