A 15-year OPP veteran and Wingham area resident passed away Monday afternoon after being shot in a gunfight just north of Seaforth Monday morning.
OPP Const. Vu Pham, 37, was airlifted to hospital after being shot while attempting to stop a vehicle.
Born in Vietnam, Pham was a 15-year member of the OPP, working out of the Huron County detachment and had also served in the Cochrane and West Parry Sound detachments.
In a press conference in London on Monday, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said police were called around 10 a.m. to North Line.
OPP officers located a suspect shortly after Pham was shot.
The 37-year-old officer and his wife, Heather, have three children, Tyler, 12, Jordan, 10 and Joshua, 7.
During the confrontation Pham was critically shot and incapacitated. OPP officers in close proximity of the scene located and confronted the suspect, who was shot during the incident.
A witness said Pham and the suspect exchanged between 15 and 20 shots.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit and the OPP’s criminal investigation branch are investigating the shooting. The SIU investigates cases of serious injury or death involving police and civilians.
The unit has sent six investigators and three forensic investigators to the scene. They are looking into witness accounts and are asking people with information to call 1-800-622-2342.
With the latest death, 104 OPP officers have been killed in the line of duty since the force was established in 1909.
Before Pham, the last OPP officer to die in the line of duty was Const. Alan Hack of the Elgin County detachment. On July 6, 2009, Hack and his partner were trying to arrest a suspect when a transport truck hit their cruiser. Hack died of his injuries in hospital in Newbury.
Under the Criminal Code, the murder of a police officer is considered first-degree murder regardless of whether it was planned or deliberate. First-degree murder carries a life sentence on conviction with no chance of parole for 25 years.
“His world revolved around his family, his wife and his three kids,” said friend Murray Houghton, who coaches Pham’s youngest son Joshua’s hockey team. “He did everything for, and with, the boys and Heather.”
Although he didn’t know Pham personally, North Huron Reeve Neil Vincent knew of Pham’s involvement in the community. And he knows the loss will be deeply felt.
Pham was “one of those ones you want in your community, that helps out, works with young people, provides a role model,” Vincent said.
As of press time at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, funeral arrangments for Pham had not been confirmed.