'I don't feel like his death was senseless'
By Layla Wilder
Sue Garbarino has made it through the past two years by remembering that her husband's sudden death was not useless.Master Police Officer Michael Garbarino, a 23-year veteran of the Fairfax County Police Department, was one of two police officers fatally shot in the parking lot of the Sully District Police Station on May 8, 2006 by a heavily armed teenager. Detective Vicky Armel was also killed. The two were the first of the county's police officers to be fatally shot in the line of duty.
Sue Garbarino now knows his death magnified the influence his life had on others, she said.
As her husband lay at Inova Fairfax Hospital, fighting a nine-day battle for his life, she wondered why such a tragedy happened to her family. Then a fellow officer told her that her husband saved people's lives.
“That helped get me through,” Sue Garbarino said. “I don't feel like his death was senseless or useless.
“We cried a lot at the hospital, but we laughed a lot too – about his life,” Garbarino said.
Michael and Sue Garbarino and their two daughters, Katie, now 16, and Natalie, now 12, moved to Centreville 14 years ago when he was still an officer at the McLean District Police Station. He asked to be transferred to the newly opened Sully District Police Station in 2003 and briefly considered asking for a promotion in rank, but decided against it because it would likely mean a transfer to a different station, his wife said.
“He always said his last three years serving at Sully were the best,” Garbarino said. “He died doing what he loved.”
After Garbarino's death, people he served with talked publicly of his kindness and dedication to God, family and community. About 3,500 people attended Garbarino's funeral at McLean Bible Church – many of them police officers who had also buried Armel the weekend before – and speakers encouraged people to follow his example.
Michael Garbarino was expected home at 3:30 p.m. on May 8, 2006 and his family was preparing to leave for vacation the next day.
But things began to go badly at the Sully station on that day when offers were first dispatched to investigate reports of a Centreville carjacking, according to police reports.
Around 3:50 p.m. the carjacker, 18-year-old Michael Kennedy, drove into the police station and opened fire in the parking lot, fatally wounding Garbarino and Armel before other officers shot and killed him.
Garbarino was sitting in his police cruiser in the station's parking lot preparing to go off duty when he was shot with more than 20 rounds of ammunition. Though seriously wounded, he radioed warnings and directions to responding officers until he was rescued.
Her husband was rarely late, so shortly after 4 p.m., Sue Garbarino called the police station to learned “something had gone down at the station.”
Several things she remembered after her husband had died gave her peace that it was his time to go.
Michael Garbarino tried to get time off on May 8, but had to go to work that day because of a court date.
On a coffee date days before he died, Michael Garbarino told her, “If God decides to take me tomorrow, I'm ready to go,” she remembers. A religious book he was reading at the station was bookmarked on a section about death and dying.
“He was spiritually ready,” his wife said. “It was his time.”
Garbarino lost her father, also a police officer, to cancer when she was 19 years old, and said she is thankful her girls heard over and over again at memorial services that their daddy lived heroically.
Even the way he died has blessed us, she said.
Compensation and donation monies she has received after her husband's death will keep her family comfortable for life, and she will be able to continue home-schooling her girls, Garbarino said.
The family is moving to the Catharpin area of Prince William County where Michael Garbarino made a tradition of taking his girls horseback riding. He always said he wanted to live there, and memories of living in their Centreville house are often too painful.
It is difficult to leave Fairfax County, Garbarino said. In the days after the shooting, county police officers did everything for her family, from bringing them meals, to sitting watch over their home for weeks. Two years later, officers still visit regularly and look out for the Garbarino family.
At Garbarino's funeral, Fairfax County Police Chief David Rohrer told community members and police officers to deal with Garbarino's death by following his example in life.
“Let us not close our hearts to the memories,” Rohrer said. “Anger will not protect and bring hope. ... Let us be loving spouses and parents and embrace the community.”
“I believe there was a fight between good and evil in the parking lot that day,” Sue Garbarino said. “In the end, I believe good prevailed.”