Slain Harford Deputies to Be Remembered with Ceremony: Sheriff

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — The Harford County Sheriff's Office announced how it will mark the anniversary of two of its deputies being gunned down in Abingdon.

Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler and members of the sheriff's office will stand together for a remembrance ceremony at the memorial established for the deputies at the Boulevard at Box Hill at 11:45 a.m. on Feb. 10.

Senior Deputy Patrick Dailey, 52, of Joppa, and Deputy First Class Mark Logsdon, 43, of Fallston, were shot and killed in the area of the shopping center on Feb. 10, 2016.

The shooter opened fire on Dailey inside the Panera in the 3400 block of Merchant Boulevard before noon that day as the deputy was following up on a tip about a wanted individual. There were at least two warrants for the killer's arrest, including one for assaulting a police officer in Florida, officials later said.

Dailey had a 12-second interaction with the suspect, asking him for his identification and to show his hands, when the 68-year-old man drew a handgun and fired, hitting the deputy above the left eyebrow, Sheriff Gahler said after the deadly shootings last year. Although Dailey was making a forward motion as though to try and knock the gun away, he was fatally struck, the sheriff said.

The gunman ran away from the Panera and hid. Logsdon was trying to find him outside the Park View Apartments. The suspect was in the driver's seat of a 2004 Ford Taurus where authorities believed he had been living, when he opened fire. Officials found multiple guns and more than 2,700 rounds of live ammunition inside the car. The suspect died still holding his handgun, the sheriff reported.

The two deputies killed on Feb. 10 were not necessarily the ones the gunman had been planning to target, officials said, as forensic analysis of his phone showed he had been tracking his ex wife online, plotting paths to her Abingdon home and a possible escape route.

“I fully suspect it was his intention..to take some sort of action against [his ex wife]," Gahler said.

The gunman's phone also indicated he had been tracking his three estranged children.

Gahler said of deputies Dailey and Logsdon: "...through their loss, lives were saved, and I think [those were] the lives that were saved.”

During the day of remembrance, the sheriff's office invites the community to contemplate that two deputies sacrificed their lives to protect those in the community.

"We ask that the entire community, wherever you may be, on February 10, 2017, pause in a moment of silence at 12 noon, as we stop and reflect on the lives that were lost and the lives that were saved during that fateful day," the sheriff's office said in a statement. "It is a moment frozen in the history of Harford County…February 10, 2016."

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Harford County Executive Barry Glassman announced during his state of the county address earlier this month that he would declare Feb. 10 an official day of remembrance to honor Dailey and Logsdon, with a period of silence followed by the activation of emergency sirens countywide to remember their sacrifice.

Here is the full announcement from the Harford County Sheriff's Office about the remembrance ceremony:

"It is difficult to believe that we are about to pass the one year point when our community lost Sr. Deputy Patrick Dailey and DFC Mark Logsdon. To honor their life and sacrifice, Sheriff Gahler and the men and women of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office will be standing in solidarity at the memorial at the Boulevard at Box Hill, for a brief Remembrance Ceremony, at 11:45 am on that day. We ask that the entire community, wherever you may be, on February 10, 2017, to pause in a moment of silence at 12 noon, as we stop and reflect on the lives that were lost and the lives that were saved during that fateful day."

Photo courtesy of the Harford County Sheriff's Office.