'No Call Is Routine:' Cops Shot In All-Too-Familiar Scene For PDs

FALMOUTH, MA – A weary Edward Dunne addressed reporters Friday night, a week after he and thousands of his brothers in blue helped lay Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna to rest and hours after two of his own officers were shot. The Falmouth police chief's first reaction when he heard the call: not again.

"This is happening way too much," he said. "We’ve got to return to a time when police officers are respected."

Two officers responding to a 21-year-old man breaking bottles were shot Friday in a shootout that also wounded the suspect, shutting down an East Falmouth neighborhood and squeezing the breath out of a region that has seen too many officers killed in the line of duty this year.

"Nothing in police work is routine...no call is routine," Dunne told reporters.

While Dunne was being interviewed, Officer Don DeMiranda was talking to his three kids in the hospital after taking a bullet in the shoulder. DeMiranda, who was shot twice – once in the vest – remained in the hospital in good condition Saturday.

Officer Ryan Moore, grazed in the neck by a bullet, and a third Falmouth police officer, who hurt himself responding to the scene, got to go home Friday.

All three will likely return to duty, patrolling streets just a couple towns over from where Sgt. Sean Gannon was shot in the head while serving a warrant. The suspect is a lifelong criminal with over 100 charges to his name. Gannon, a 32-year-old Yarmouth K-9 officer known as "the epitome of kindness and selflessness," left behind a wife.

Earlier this month, a police officer about an hour north in Weymouth was killed while responding to a report of an erratic driver, who allegedly hit him with a rock, took his gun and shot him in the head and chest. Sgt. Michael Chesna, the kind of guy who once literally gave someone the shirt off his back, left behind a wife and two kids.

Broken bottles, serving a warrant, erratic driving – all "routine calls."

The frustration is palpable. Police officers across the state are tired of being portrayed as the bad guy – they've said as much. Speaking to reporters at Chesna's funeral earlier this month, Yarmouth Deputy Police Chief Steven Xiarhos urged changing the narrative surrounding police officers.

"Show them that you love them," he said. "Show them that they're respected."

One of Chesna's fellow officers was more frank. In a note posted to his Facebook page, Weymouth Officer Edward O'Brien railed against what he called the "small but vocal" minority that has vilified officers as "crooked, uneducated and bullies."

"None of that narrative is true and I'm done trying to apologize for it," he wrote.

Life returned to normal Saturday in Falmouth, an idyllic Upper Cape beach community where out-of-towners outnumber locals during the summer months – the population triples in-season, according to the 2010 census. People flooded the restaurants, shops and markets downtown, taking advantage of the sweet spot where cloudy weather offers relief from the heat and humidity but hasn't yet given way to rain.

A bullet going a half-inch in another direction and there would instead be blue ribbons wrapped around trees and mailboxes, tee shirts whose profits are donated to the police officers' association and charity sporting events in the works. And another town would be preparing for a memorial service following a "routine call."

Photo by Alex Newman