WINGHAM, Ont.- “Dear Daddy, you are the best daddy in the world,” the tiny voice said over the loudspeaker.
The words of slain Ontario Provincial Police constable Vu Pham's young son Joshua were broadcast to an overflow crowd outside the arena in Wingham, Ont., north of London, where his father's funeral was being held.
Seven-year-old Joshua, one of Pham’s three young sons, spoke at the emotional ceremony for his father. The funeral attracted an estimated 8,000 police officers from across North America.
Joshua’s two brothers, 12-year-old Tyler and 10-year-old Jordan, were also there, along with Pham’s widow, Heather.
“Daddy, I remember when I was in a tree and the branch broke and I came tumbling down and you asked me if I was OK and then we laughed,” Joshua recalled.
Said his brother, Tyler: “Dear Daddy, I miss you. I loved going hunting with you. I will miss you, but you are home.” The children’s farewells came at the end of an emotional day for the small town of Wingham, home of the 15-year OPP veteran who was mortally wounded at the start of a gunfight that erupted after he pulled over a white pickup truck along a rural Huron County road on Monday.
The shooting suspect, 70-year-old Fred Preston, died Thursday in a London hospital after he was taken off life-support.
Preston and a second OPP officer exchanged gunfire across the rural road after Pham, a Vietnamese immigrant who came to Canada and grew up with adoptive parents in Sundridge, Ont., near North Bay, was hit as he got out of his cruiser.
Preston, also of Sundridge, had been charged with first-degree murder and with attempted murder of the second officer, Pham’s partner, Const. Dell Mercey.
At the funeral, Mercey said it was Pham’s spirit that got him through the shootout, giving him the will to survive.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino also attended the funeral.
The funeral crowd was so large, thousands of officers had to be accommodated outside the arena, either standing outside or in a large overflow tent.
