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LET'S WORK TOGETHER TO TURN TRAGEDY INTO VICTORY IN Yarmouth K-9 Sgt. Sean Gannon's name.
Sean Gannon’s mother vows to ‘do the right thing’
Police officer’s killing fuels family activism tempered by forgiveness.
NEW BEDFORD — In life and in death, Yarmouth K-9 Sgt. Sean Gannon will be known for doing the right thing.
His mother will make sure of that.
“Since he was a child, he had a very strong ethic of doing the right thing,” said Denise Morency Gannon, recounting how 5-year-old Sean declined to attend a pool party because the host was a “bad boy” who hurt and bullied people.
“He had a very clear idea about what was right and what was wrong,” she said.
Now, Morency Gannon is on a mission to “do the right thing” in memory of her son, who was shot and killed in the line of duty one month ago today.
And that will likely involve the retired teacher becoming a strong advocate for tougher gun laws and reform of the state’s criminal justice system.
Just weeks after tragedy rocked her family, a remarkably collected, gracious and forward-looking Morency Gannon spoke with the Times at the fallen officer’s childhood home in the north end of New Bedford.
For nearly an hour Wednesday, she shared stories about her son’s early years and how the family intends to forge ahead and keep his memory alive.
A strong Roman Catholic faith, family and community support are what she attributes to helping her and husband Patrick, as well as their two other children, Martha and Timothy, soldier on since Sean Gannon, 32, was killed while trying to serve an arrest warrant to a career criminal in Marstons Mills on April 12.
“What we’ve experienced is a nation behind us,” she said. “We’ve had letters come in from all over the United States.”
Some of the estimated 10,000 letters also arrived from across the street, from Elwyn J. Campbell Elementary School. Classes of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders delivered handmade sympathy cards to the Gannons in the days after Sean’s death.
Morency Gannon planned to visit the school to thank the students Wednesday afternoon.
A hero’s childhood
The boy who would grow up to be a police officer is remembered by his mother as a talented artist who would retreat to his room for hours to draw sketches of superheroes.
“He would go into a zone,” she said. “I’d have to knock on the door and say, ‘Sean, it’s time to eat a sandwich.’”
He also played tennis and loved animals, especially Molly, the family’s late springer spaniel, foreshadowing his future career as a K-9 handler.
“We had frogs and turtles, but I drew the limit with snakes,” she said, noting at one point he had adopted five rescue cats. “Any living creature he had an affinity with.”
No matter where family vacations would take the Gannons, Sean always made sure they visited a zoo, his mother fondly remembered.
“I got the dog!” Morency Gannon recalls him excitedly exclaiming to her on the phone when he found out he was selected to be a K-9 officer, a position he did not expect to land.
The Gannons are a family of musicians, and while his brother and sister were taking piano lessons, Sean would pass the time waiting for them to finish by walking with his mother around New Bedford’s Buttonwood Park, which also has a zoo. As her son neared high school age, Morency Gannon remembers telling Sean that she would understand if he didn’t want to continue the “one-on-one time” walking with his mother around the park.
“Mom, I’ll always walk with you,” she said he replied.
“That has carried me through during these difficult days,” Morency Gannon said. “I remembered that phrase — I’ll always walk with you — and he always will, I know it. I take great comfort in that.”
Budding activism
Morency Gannon now looks ahead to righting some of the wrongs she says may have contributed to her son’s death, although she is still unsure what her role might look like or whether she will align with any particular organizations.
“Well, I think we start where the problem begins,” she said. “I think that we need stronger gun-control laws.”
There is also a need for legislative reform involving terms for judges, as well as how judges look into the criminal history of people who continue to be released to further harm the public, she said.
Although legislative action and reform are major goals of her future advocacy efforts, Morency Gannon says there also need to be cultural shifts to bring back respect for police officers and eliminate what she refers to as the demonization of law enforcement.
“We have lost a foundation of what we used to have,” she said, referring to faith, family and people being kind and compassionate to each other.
“Let’s get the foundations of moral integrity back into our culture,” she said. “We’ve seen too many deaths; it’s not just Sean that has died. In the last month, we’ve lost four officers. It’s too much.”
As a former teacher, Morency Gannon expressed bewilderment that schools that used to have fire drills are now teaching children how to react to active shooters.
“Congress needs to do its work and put those (gun-control) laws into effect immediately,” she said. “We voted them in. The message is loud and clear that people are appalled. Now is the time to say, ‘Enough is enough. You are our lawmakers. Either change the laws or we are not putting you back into office.’
“In November get out there and vote for the right thing,” Morency Gannon said she tells people who reach out to her with offers of assistance.
After Sean’s death, the Gannon family received a call from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., among other dignitaries.
“I told her, ‘We’re depending on you to be a strong voice for us because you have a strong voice and you know when to use it,’” Morency Gannon said.
Faith and forgiveness
A general response by the family to elected officials who offered condolences and offers of assistance was “fix it!” she said.
In the weeks since Gannon’s death, there have been deafening calls for the death penalty for Thomas Latanowich, the man charged with killing him.
Morency Gannon is not among them.
“Taking a life for a life is never the answer, it’s the old ‘an eye for an eye,’” she said. “What would that solve? That only makes hate grow more and doesn’t resolve anything but to take a life away.”
Sean would agree with her position, she said.
“I think he would advocate for the same thing,” she said. “Sean would absolutely agree with me.”
The family does, however, look forward to Latanowich being justly tried and justly punished. Morency Gannon said they would be in attendance every step of the way.
The right thing to do is to believe in the justice system, she said.
She also hopes the judicial and public safety oversight hearings on Beacon Hill requested by the Cape and Islands legislative delegation take place as soon as possible.
While the loss of a child, especially to homicide, is devastating and something you never get over, Morency Gannon said, she and her husband are using prayer to find it in their hearts to forgive Latanowich.
“I pray to forgive him, and I keep him in my prayers every day,” she said.
Morency Gannon has emerged as the family spokeswoman.
“I’m just speaking from my heart,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dara, Sean’s wife, continues to ask for privacy, his mother said, but will likely be involved with establishing and managing any foundations that emerge in her husband’s honor.
“She is a strong woman,” Morency Gannon said. “She’s missing Sean every minute.”
Morency Gannon said there were not adequate words to express the gratitude for the outpouring of support the family has received from the Cape and Islands community, except to say it was “overwhelming” and “heartwarming.”
“I know Sean, and he always wanted to do the right thing,” she said. “I’ll continue to be his voice and do the right thing. I invite others to join me.”
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