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Edward Francis McDermott
- May. 18, 1980 -
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(274)
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Resided: |
Miami (Dade County) FL, USA
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Born: | Apr. 25, 1932 |
Fallen: | May. 18, 1980 |
Race/Sex: | Caucasian Male / 48 yrs. of age |
| Agency |
Dept: | Miami Police Dept. - FL
400 NW 2nd Avenue Miami, FL
33128 USA (305)603-6640 |
County: | Miami-Dade |
Dept. Type: | Municipal/Police |
Hero's Rank: | Lieutenant |
Sworn Date: | 1/1959 |
FBI Class: | Accident - Natural |
Agency URL: | Click Here
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Bio: Edward Francis McDermott, 48, was born on April 25, 1932, in Long Island City (Queens, NYC) to Edward Francis McDermott, Sr., and Mary Messett McDermott. Edward was the second of three children and grew up in Queens with his older sister, Eileen, and younger brother, James Vincent. All three children attended Catholic schools. Ed attended St. Patrick's Grammar School in Long Island City and Long Island City H.S., graduating in 1949.
Edward's father took and passed the NYC police exam but could not serve due to an illness. His maternal uncle, Walter Messett, was a NYC policeman in the 1950's and 1960's.
McDermott joined the Air Force in 1949 and served in Germany as a military policeman. He reached the rank of Sgt. during his four year military tenure. During that time he learned to speak German fluently and was discharged in 1953 with the rank of Master Sgt. Ed returned to NYC and attended N.Y.U. for 3 years majoring in criminology and worked part-time as the night auditor at the Gramarcy Park Hotel in Manhattan.
While working at the Gramarcy Park Hotel, Ed met Hilda "Rickie" Soler (born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx) in 1954 and the couple married on May 11, 1955, in Myrtle Beach, N.C. Ed was 23 and Hilda, 25, with two children (Robert R. Blanco, 8, and Linda Jo Roe, 6) from previous marriages.
Rickie Soler had been an undercover policewoman for the Lake Ronkonkoma Police Department (near Islip on Long Island) in 1949-1951 and thus preceded her husband in police work. Also, her father had been a military policeman in World War II.
Three days after the marriage ceremony, the family of four moved to Miami where Hilda's father lived. Ed worked as an auditor at the El Concodora Hotel in downtown Miami and held a second job as a private investigator with the Burns Detective Agency (1955-1956).
The McDermott family increased from four to six with the births (in Miami) of Christina A. on Dec. 7, 1957, and Cynthia L. on Feb. 5, 1959. Hilda worked as a practical nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The couple divorced in 1966 when Robert was 19, Linda Jo, 17, Christina, 9, and Cynthia, 7. Hilda remarried in 1973.
Edward McDermott joined the Miami Police Department in Jan. of 1959 and became one of 15 members of the Dept.'s 42nd Recruit Class (pictured on 3rd floor of the M.P.D.). He graduated from the Academy on May 22, 1959. Most of his 21 years were spent in the burglary and auto theft units. McDermott became an expert in building security and crime prevention and conducted numerous seminars on the subjects. He even helped design the security system in the new Miami Police headquarters building. Edna Buchanan, the Pulitzer prize winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald wrote about Lt. McDermott in her book, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat. She described the first time they met when he threatened to arrest her for "crashing" a homicide crime scene and then told a harrowing story of a domestic homicide investigation on which she accompanied him to the crime scene and to the morgue. On a personal level she described Ed as a quiet Irishman and a strong, old-fashioned sort of cop. Divorced, he lived alone and kept to himself. He was very private and sort of sad, a man you could call friend but never really know... ... McDermott looked sad, but then he always looked sad, even when he smiled. (Corpse Had a Familiar Face, 1987, pp. 94,96) Everyone who knew Ed McDermott said the same thing about him. He was "a good cop" and his job was the most important thing in his life. Det. Mike Gonzalez, who knew Lt. McDermott for many years, and who was his partner in burglary for a brief time in 1967, said that McDermott was a very conscientious worker. He also remembered McDermott as "leading man handsome" who impressed everyone with his good looks, deep voice, Boston accent and bearing. Gonzalez also said that, though McDermott was a "loner," he was one of the kindest and most sentimental men he ever knew. McDermott was also president of the Emerald Society (An Irish fraternity) and helped organize the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dade in the late 1970's. McDermott's daughter, Tina, would later say that her father "died for what he believed in" and that "our pride in our father will never die." |
Survived by: |
his two daughters, Christina McDermott, 22, of Ft. Lauderdale and Cynthia Kukula, 21, of Denver; his ex-wife, Hilda McDermott, 50, of Denver; a granddaughter, Christina Marie McDermott, 3 months, of Denver; a brother, James Vincent McDermott of Newton, N.J., and a sister, Eileen Brown, 53, of NYC.
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Fatal Incident Summary
Offender: |
none
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Location: |
FL
USA
Sun. May. 18, 1980
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Summary: |
Miami Police Lt. Edward McDermott, 48, a 21-year veteran, died of a heart attack while escorting National Guard troops during the 1980 riot. McDermott's death was the third (of the 108 through 1995) "line of duty" police deaths in Dade County that resulted from a heart attack while in the performance of duty. He became the 27th Miami officer to die in the line of duty.
At 12:30PM on Sunday, May 18, 1980, Lt. McDermott and Officer Jerome Kaline, 33, were in a police cruiser (a 1977 Plymouth) traveling north on South Dixie Highway (U.S. 1) at 17th Ave. escorting a convoy of National Guard vehicles from the Coconut Grove area to the Miami Police Department. McDermott, who was driving, had stopped his vehicle in the middle lane at the intersection and was waiting for the convoy to catch up with the cruiser. McDermott's Plymouth suddenly veered off the road to the right, "jumped the curb and went under a chain link fence and stopped" at 1601 Nethia Dr.
After the vehicle crashed, Officer Kaline observed that McDermott had apparently suffered a heart attack and was "breathing, but he was unable to obtain a pulse." He radioed for medical assistance. Fire Rescue Unit #8 arrived within minutes and initiated CPR. There was even some concern shortly after the accident that Lt. McDermott may have been hit by a sniper and this confusion led to a delay in his being transported to the hospital.
The rescue unit transported McDermott to the emergency room of nearby Mercy Hospital where CPR "was continued with negative results." McDermott was pronounced dead at 1:26PM. The cause of death was listed as "occlusive coronary arteriosclerosis" (i.e., a heart attack).
Miami police officials first decided that Lt. McDermott's death was not "in the line of duty" and refused to grant his family the double indemnity award (approximately $100,000) for such deaths. However, in 1982, unknown to the family, Miami police officials apparently changed their mind and added McDermott's name to its list of officers killed in the line of duty. (The family has never received the benefits for a line of duty death.)
Apparently the police department decided that the stress of the riot and the fact that Lt. McDermott had been working for seven straight days with little sleep (and without going home), contributed to his death and ruled that he thus died in the line of duty.
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Source: |
Book Excerpted in part or in whole from Dr. Wilbanks book-
FORGOTTEN HEROES: POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN DADE COUNTY, FL, 1895-1995
by William Wilbanks
Louisville: Turner Publications
1996
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