Oren Dorell
USA TODAY
OAK CREEK, Wis. — Two police officers who responded to Sunday’s shooting rampage in Oak Creek, Wis., are being hailed as heroes.
Lt. Brian Murphy, 51, was helping a shooting victim when he was shot nine times. As colleagues arrived, he waved them off and urged them to help others, they said.
The other, Officer Sam Lenda, fired at the gunman, wounding him in the stomach, police said. Officials initially said the officer had killed the gunman, Wade Michael Page, but the FBI said Wednesday that Page shot himself in the head — delivering the mortal wound — after being wounded.
Lenda is a 32-year veteran of the Oak Creek Police Department and a firearms instructor. The head of the police union said Lenda doesn’t want to comment and shuns the spotlight.
“He told us he does not consider himself a hero, that he was doing his job and he feels any of his fellow officers would have acted the same way,” said Jim Palmer of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association. The union is representing Lenda in the routine shooting investigation.
Murphy was still in surgical intensive care at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, but he had been able to walk, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said.
Former police chief Thomas Bauer called Murphy a selfless, committed Irish-American cop.
He led the SWAT team until he felt it was a job for a younger, fitter man. Bauer asked him to stay until younger officers had more experience, and he stayed two more years.
“Imagine what a tough, street-smart New York Irishman police officer is like, and that is Brian Murphy, complete with the Bronx accent,” Bauer said. “He knew he was shot, but I think he realized his wounds were not life-threatening but that there was a pressing need — and that was contain this shooter.”
Copyright 2012 Gannett Company, Inc.