His death broke me, says father of slain cop Bill Crews – The Daily Telegraph

March 1st, 2013

David Schulberg the 3rd

Shattered forever … Bill Crews’ parents, Sharon and Kelvin / Pic: John Grainger
Source: The Daily Telegraph

Slain in the line of duty … Constable Bill Crews / Pic: Police Media
Source: The Daily Telegraph

“IT’S bad, dad, it’s Bill – he’s been shot.”

With those words, the lives of Constable William Crews’ family were forever changed as they learned the young officer had been fatally wounded in a drugs raid shootout.

Yesterday the 26-year-old trainee detective’s parents and three siblings told the Supreme Court their harrowing accounts of the first moments they heard their “Bill” was seriously injured – and the painful years after the realisation he was gone forever.

Constable Crews was shot in the neck during a basement carpark search at Bankstown in September 2010. He died in hospital.

His father Kelvin Crews, a retired policeman, choked on his words and struggled to hold back tears as he described the “devastation” since his oldest son Ben delivered the news. “There is no cure for death, no cure; death’s forever, the impact is forever,” he said. “I’m a broken man since Bill’s death.”

Philip Nguyen, now 56, opened fire on police during the drug bust, hitting the young officer once in the arm.

Police returned fire and a stray bullet from another detective’s gun hit Constable Crews, fatally wounding him.

Nguyen was charged with manslaughter on the grounds of excessive self-defence.

He later pleaded guilty to the crime and to wounding Constable Crews, although he unsuccessfully tried to reverse the plea in December after claiming he didn’t realise what he was agreeing to.

Ben Crews, who is still a serving officer, yesterday told Nguyen’s sentence hearing he continued to have dreams about seeing his brother lying dead on the operat- ing table when he was asked to formally identify the body.

“It was hard to recognise him as this was not the person I knew, the person I grew up with and the person I loved. We were not just brothers, Bill was my closest friend,” he said.Constable Crews’ mother Sharon said she remembered returning to her son’s empty room after his death to find his smell still lingered in the air.

“At times I thought I could reach out and touch him … the last time I touched him was at the morgue (and) I’m still trying to erase the memory,” she said.

Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC said Nguyen’s sentence should be at the top of the range as he had shown no remorse and his crimes involved the shooting and death of an officer in the line of duty.”The objective seriousness is in the worst category for both the offences,” he said.

Manslaughter carries a maximum 25-year jail term.

Outside the court, defence lawyer Ho Ledinh said Nguyen should at least be entitled to some leniency because of his guilty plea, although his client maintained he was only defending himself.

“He didn’t think he killed anyone at all … his position was self-defence,” he said.

The hearing continues on Friday before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton delivers her sentence at a later date.

Source Article from http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/his-death-broke-me-says-father-of-slain-cop-bill-crews/story-e6freuy9-1226588747624