Remembering a life
MOSCOW – With his dying words on the night of May 19, Moscow police Officer Lee Newbill urged his partner to take cover, even as gunfire hailed down on them. “Get down!” he said, according to Moscow’s chief of police.
By the time rescuers reached Newbill on the sidewalk near the Latah County Sheriff’s Office last Saturday, they found no sign of consciousness.
The affable 48-year-old father of three became the first Moscow police officer to be killed in the line of duty, one of three people fatally shot by 30-year-old janitor Jason Hamilton before the gunman took his own life.
“I think Lee is sitting up there smiling and thinking what a grand occasion this is,” his father, retired Marine Corps Col. Merrill S. “Bud” Newbill, told a crowd of several thousand at a memorial in the University of Idaho’s Kibbie Dome on Friday afternoon.
The officer’s death touched off a week of somber vigils in this small college town, which Mayor Nancy Chaney described as “first and foremost a community.” Across the quaint downtown, American flags hung in the Friday morning sun and makeshift signs urged people to pray for the Newbill family.
“Strange thing is, I never heard a thing,” said Shirley Tenwick, who lives two blocks from the county building and has spent more than 60 years in Moscow. “I saw it on TV, and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe what the television was saying about Moscow, Idaho.”
At Friday’s memorial, Chaplain Gary Young of the Idaho State Police called for a moment of silence for Hamilton’s other victims: First Presbyterian Church caretaker Paul Bauer and the shooter’s wife, Crystal Hamilton. University of Idaho student Peter Husmann, sheriff’s Deputy Brannon Jordan and Moscow police Officer Bill Shields were wounded.
As the city attempts to understand the tragedy – including unanswered questions as to how Hamilton obtained high-powered weapons despite an extensive criminal background – Friday’s events focused on the life and death of Newbill.
“Although it is proper that we should ask these questions, we may never know the answers,” said Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch. “Far too much time is spent trying to understand the justifications of the monster rather than the plight of the victim.”
On Friday, shortly after 10 a.m., a motorcade of police cruisers, firetrucks and county patrol cars rumbled down Washington Street, where hundreds had gathered.
In front of the post office, a few hundred feet from the site of the shooting, a Boy Scout stood at attention as the vehicles whirred past: Lewiston. Blackfoot. Coeur d’Alene. Rathdrum. St. Maries.
More than 2,000 law enforcement officers attended Newbill’s memorial service. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter was there but did not speak.
“Lee had a way with people that was affirming, warm and real,” Police Chief Dan Weaver said. ” ‘Loyalty,’ ‘hard work’ and ‘duty’ are words that epitomized his daily work.”
A military man comes home
Born Oct. 3, 1958, Lee Stewart Newbill was the son of a Marine colonel, a self-described “military brat” who bounced around the United States and the world.
In childhood photos, he is a towheaded boy, smiling and surrounded by his older sisters. In a Kodachrome Christmas photo, he appears properly equipped for American boyhood: a baseball bat slung over his shoulder, a glove at ready, a toy six-shooter strapped to the hip of his pajamas.
His father said he was an outgoing, curious and fun-loving boy. He recounted a story when a 7-year-old Lee visited a farm and pestered an older relative to give him some chewing tobacco. Exasperated, the relative finally gave in.
“I will never forget the expression on that sweet 7-year-old face,” Bud Newbill said with a laugh. “He spit it out in every direction.”
An online photobook posted by his family traces Newbill’s life, from his marriage to Rebecca Jo Fouts in 1981 to his graduation from the University of Idaho to family vacations with his three children – Christina, 24; Lisa, 23; and Jeremiah, 21, an airman 1st Class at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.
After graduating from the University of Idaho, Newbill followed his father into the military. Newbill joined the U.S. Army, serving at bases in Kentucky, Georgia and Germany.
By the time of his honorable discharge in 1992, he had risen to the rank of captain and had survived a helicopter crash and tank explosion. He left Fort Lewis, Wash., and moved to a quiet 6-acre homesite near Moscow Mountain.
“We are at peace here on our mountain and wish all who read this well,” Newbill wrote in a one-page autobiography on his Web site.
At night, he patrolled the University of Idaho as a security officer. He joined the Moscow Police Department in 2001.
An outdoorsman and history buff, Newbill served as clerk for the Hog Heaven Muzzleloaders and participated in re-enactments of Western history. A stickler for accuracy, he helped carve a canoe from a fir tree and spent a year piecing together a flintlock shotgun, complete with walnut stock and brass mountings.
This spring, he spent four days camping near the St. Joe River in North Idaho, one in a string of excursions into the Idaho wilderness.
“His personality was very laid back, very relaxed,” said Jim Baillargeon, who accompanied Newbill on the trip. “It was a chance to get away. It was a time to get out and relax.”
His intelligence was readily apparent. He loved Celtic music and taught himself to play the fiddle and dulcimer. On the Web site for the muzzle-loading club, he wrote a four-page explanation of flintlock rifles, touching on everything from their origins in 15th-century France to the “fickleness” of the weapons in wet weather.
“The memories are good,” said Tom Wilson, 49, a close friend of Newbill. “We’re all going to be going through them for years. Right now, each one just kind of trips you up a little bit.”
Father first, but always a cop
At the Police Department, Newbill’s enthusiasm and jocular nature quickly made him friends.
When the department purchased a Segway – a two-wheeled personal transportation vehicle – Newbill eagerly learned to operate it, even though other officers were skeptical.
“There was a sense that it was OK to ask him to do just about anything,” Weaver said. “He was a perfect match for any assignment that was given.”
At the department’s online memorial, e-mails arrived from around the nation. Local residents recounted their interactions with the police officer.
One writer remembered Newbill as the “officer who saved that stray dog at our house.” Another recalled Newbill responding to a call from a 15-year-old boy who thought someone was in the family’s home.
“Officer Newbill was so kind to him and searched the house and found no one,” the woman wrote. “He left a lasting impression on my son as he was very kind to him.”
Others recalled his infectious enthusiasm and easy laugh.
“A cop that was able to keep a family life at the top of his list,” according to one writer.
In his own words, again on his Web site, Newbill described himself as “somewhat humble and always opinionated.” He was, by turns, a “Farm hand, Gardener, Gas pumper/mechanic … Soldier, Security Officer, Chimney Sweep, masonry restorer.”
The little house in the woods became a sanctuary.
“The sadness that permeates the house is palpable, and I know that every future visit to my childhood home will be tinged with a wistful sadness,” his daughter, Lisa Rippee, wrote in a letter to Moscow police. “The memories that assail me as I look around break my heart because there will not be more with my dad. They soothe my hurt because they are happy ones.”
At the memorial service, Newbill’s other daughter, Christine, read a letter she had written to her father.
“Dear Daddy,” she said. “Remember when I’d be sad, and you’d hold me in your arms and scratch my back and tell me everything is going to be OK? I need you to tell me this now.”
Jeremiah Newbill read a poem for his father. He struggled to keep his emotions in check.
“It’s going to be hard,” he said simply.
Then he turned to a table decorated with his father’s mementos and saluted crisply.
The officer’s ashes will be scattered in the woods of North Idaho.
It seems a fitting farewell, his friends agreed, for a man who once wrote, “Turn me footloose away in the forest, Far from the pathways of men.”
In addition to his wife and children, Newbill is survived by his parents, Merrill and Mary; his siblings, Dixie Reyes, Judy Burns, Katy Newbill, and Edward Newbill; and three grandchildren.