Steve Dery was a “good guy and a damn good cop.”
But he’ll never get to serve and protect in his hometown.
He was killed in the line of duty after a gunman opened fire on Dery, 27, of
Orléans, and his partner while they were responding to a domestic violence
call at a home in northern Quebec Saturday night.
His family is reeling and grieving privately.
“I’m not doing very well,” said Dery’s mother, Celine, when reached at the
family home in the east end where cars filled the driveway on Sunday.
“We’re still trying to process all this.”
Dery and his partner — members of the Kativik Regional Police Force —
arrived at the home in rural Kuujjuaq around 9:30 p.m.
That’s when a man walked out and shot the officers.
Surete du Quebec officers were brought in to investigate.
The pair was rushed to hospital, but Dery succumbed to his injuries several
hours later, said Sgt. Bruno Beaulieu.
The other officer suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries.
A woman who made the 911 call managed to escape unharmed.
The town has a population of 2,500 people and is about 1,200 km north-east
of Montreal.
SQ police set up a perimeter around the house where the suspect barricaded
himself, but it was only late Sunday afternoon when a tactical squad burst
into the home and found the dead body of the presumed suspect.
“Everything tends to illustrate that he would have taken his own life,”
explained SQ spokesman Daniel Thibaudeau, adding police will have to wait
for an autopsy to confirm this theory.
Dery’s friends turned to Facebook to extend their support to the devastated
family.
“It’s really terrible … there just isn’t words,” wrote one of his friends.
A former co-worker described Dery as a “good guy and a damn good cop … he
was very passionate about his job and, at least, he died doing what he loved
the most.”
He also followed in his father’s footsteps.
Dery’s dad, Gilles, is a retired RCMP officer who trains cops to be deployed
overseas.
As of Sunday morning, he was in Africa on a peacekeeping mission.
Dery’s brother, Ben, is a firefighter in Ottawa, prompting Chief John
deHooge to release a statement extending “heartfelt condolences and prayers
of support to the family … We also offer our deepest sympathies to the
Kativik Regional Police Force in the loss of officer Steve Dery. Today, all
emergency service responders share in this tragic loss.”
City cops who know the family were shocked and saddened by the news.
Regardless of distance, “police officers are family and when somebody loses
their life in such a tragic way on duty, it is a tremendous loss, and we
feel first for Steve’s family … and for his colleagues in Kativik and what
they’re going through,” said Ottawa police chief Charles Bordeleau.
Six or seven city cops originate from KRPF, said Bordealeau.
“We’ve reached out to those officers,” he said, adding they’ll provide any
support needed to the Dery family.
Dery has another brother, Mathieu.
— With files from QMI Agency
http://ottawasun.com/2013/03/03/quebec-police-officer-killed-is-from-ottawa
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