On Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1990, Prince William County Police Officer Philip Michael ’Mike’ Pennington, 35, was killed while serving on a SWAT team executing a search warrant at a home on Dodson Drive in Dale City, Virginia. The warrant was connected to an earlier shooting of an Arlington County sheriff’s deputy; the suspect was identified as Mark F. Arban, 31. Officers entering the residence were confronted by Arban; Pennington tried to de-escalate and persuade him to surrender a pistol. Arban retreated, armed himself with a rifle, and fired. A single shot struck Pennington in the head, penetrating his helmet and killing him.

Other SWAT members returned fire and fatally shot Arban at the scene. Pennington, an 11-year veteran of the department who had been wounded during a drug raid 11 months earlier, was the first Prince William County officer killed by gunfire in the department’s 20-year history. He was survived by his wife and son; an elementary school in Manassas now bears his name, and his wife Connie Pennington later joined the Prince William County Police Department.

Are there readers who remember Pennington’s service or the community response after that November 1990 incident?