A Rare Honor for the Valor of 3 Officers

2 Victims and Colleague Who Shot Assailant at a Fairfax Station Are Lauded

Officer Richard A. Lehr Jr. was just relaxing in his sport-utility vehicle last spring, waiting for his shift to start at the Sully District police station in Fairfax County, when he heard the pop-pop-pop of a gun. He thought it was some sort of training exercise.

Then he saw the man in camouflage, wearing a ski mask, firing a rifle at the station and stopping to reload. Lehr didn't have a police radio, and he didn't know that two officers had been shot. But he scrambled into the back of his vehicle, grabbed his pistol and bulletproof vest, and went after the gunman, who was armed with two powerful rifles and a host of handguns and ammunition.

"Please, don't move," he told the gunman, but 18-year-old Michael W. Kennedy reached for one of his weapons. Lehr began firing, hitting Kennedy in the upper body. Kennedy fired back. Lehr quickly ran out of bullets, then sprinted for the station, barely avoiding being shot. He reloaded, then went back to resume battle, but it was over.

Officer Michael E. Garbarino was fatally wounded, and Detective Vicky O. Armel was dead. Yesterday, Garbarino, Armel and Lehr were awarded the Gold Medal of Valor from the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce. Only two others, a Fairfax police officer and a Fairfax firefighter, have received the medal since the chamber began honoring such heroism in 1978.

Four other officers who were the first to reach the Sully parking lot May 8 were awarded the Silver Medal of Valor. Officer Mark P. Dale and Detective Jeffrey W. Andrea spontaneously attacked Kennedy from outside the lot and killed him, and Lt. Boyd F. Thompson Jr. and Officer William C. Horn were the first to reach and assist Garbarino, who was still conscious and determined to survive five gunshot wounds. He died nine days later.

Several officers spoke publicly for the first time yesterday about their roles May 8, described by Fairfax Chief David M. Rohrer as "a day, an event, which transformed our department and our community." Garbarino's wife, Suzanne Garbarino, and Armel's husband, Fairfax Detective Tyler Armel, accepted the gold medals on behalf of their spouses, and other honorees and their families in a packed ballroom at the McLean Hilton applauded loudly.

The first two line-of-duty slayings of Fairfax officers still have a profound impact on the 1,300-member force. "Psychologically, I'm changed inside," Lehr said. "I'm much more aware of my surroundings, of the bigger picture."

Lehr, 39, has been a Fairfax officer for three years. He said he was honored to receive the gold medal, but "I wish I was up there with them [Garbarino and Armel]. Not alone."

Thompson, 47, a supervisor at the Sully station, said, "You think about it every day." He said a bullet hole in the station's rear door has been left intact, at officers' request, and spots are marked in the parking lot for Armel and Garbarino, to someday house a memorial.

In 26 years as an officer, Thompson never carried a gun home from work. "I do now," he said.

Andrea, 29, had finished a tour with the Marines in Iraq only eight months earlier. Then, in January 2006, he shot and wounded an armed robber in the Mount Vernon area. On the afternoon of May 8, his shift had ended, and he was on his way home when he heard a call about a carjacking. He listened as he drove. Then he heard Garbarino reporting gunfire.

Andrea sped to Sully, and "I didn't know what I was going to do," he said. Like Lehr, he had only his pistol. He thought he might drive into the lot and run down the gunman.

Outside the fenced lot, he hooked up with Dale, 36. They went into the adjacent woods. "I saw him, shot at him a couple of times, he went down," Andrea said. But they didn't know whether Kennedy was hit or just hiding.

Andrea and Dale rushed to the fence, seeing Kennedy getting into firing position. "We just opened up, started shooting" until Kennedy was motionless, Andrea said.

Meanwhile, Thompson and perhaps a dozen other officers were at the carjacking scene, near Kennedy's house. Armel had intended to head there, too, but instead saw Kennedy firing at Garbarino and engaged Kennedy herself. Although she was wearing a bulletproof vest, she was fatally shot in the chest. But she managed to fire four more times. She wasn't discovered until well after the shooting stopped.

Thompson dashed into the parking lot, looking for the suspect. "I turn around, and there's Gabby [Garbarino]," he said. He climbed into Garbarino's front seat. "I'm not going to die here," Garbarino told him. Initially, it appeared he would survive the wounds from an AK-47-type rifle, and his fight gave the Fairfax department hope.