Anthony J. Garaffa was a respected and decorated police officer, a mentor to his younger colleagues, and a loving family man. At 41 years old, the white male was a 16-year veteran of the Irvington Police Department in New Jersey, where he had earned more than 40 letters of commendation for his dedicated service. To those he guided, like retired Sergeant Kenneth Hogan, he was a "super hero" who "made me a man. He made me a respectable human being." But beyond his uniform, he was a husband and the father of a two-year-old daughter. His life of service and his future with his family were cut short in a sudden act of violence in the summer of 1984.
On the morning of August 8, 1984, Patrolman Garaffa was on duty when he responded to a report of suspicious activity. Around 11:30 a.m., he arrived near the intersection of 40th Street and Springfield Avenue and encountered three men. One of them, 21-year-old Teddy Rose, was carrying a canvas bag. Rose and his two acquaintances had been planning to burglarize a local pizza restaurant. As Patrolman Garaffa began to question them, he asked Rose what was inside the bag. Rose responded by reaching into the bag, pulling back the hammer on a concealed sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, and firing it directly through the canvas into Garaffa's abdomen.
The blast was devastating. Fellow officers who arrived at the scene found Garaffa with a weak pulse and labored breathing. As paramedics prepared to transport him, he went into cardiac arrest but was resuscitated. He was rushed to University Hospital in Newark, arriving with no blood pressure. The head of the trauma team later described the injury as "enormous," noting that about three-quarters of the officer's aorta had been "shot away" and the wadding from the shotgun shell was lodged in his spinal column. Despite extensive emergency surgery, Patrolman Garaffa's heart stopped, and he was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m., roughly five hours after he was shot.
The investigation moved quickly. About two hours after the shooting, Teddy Rose walked into the police department in the nearby town of Hillside and turned himself in. He confessed to Sergeant Knight, who had to stop him to read him his rights. In a subsequent formal statement, Rose admitted he knew the shotgun was loaded when he cocked the hammer and fired. He told detectives he shot Patrolman Garaffa because he "panicked, did not want to get caught."
An Essex County grand jury indicted Rose for the purposeful or knowing murder of a police officer, along with several weapons charges and hindering apprehension. His trial began in May 1985. The defense acknowledged that Rose fired the fatal shot but argued it was an "instantaneous act of fear and panic" rather than a premeditated killing. In June 1985, a jury found him guilty of murder and the other charges. Based on the jury's verdict in the penalty phase, Rose was sentenced to death.
The legal battle, however, was far from over. The case proceeded through years of appeals. In 1988, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed Rose's murder conviction but overturned the death sentence, citing a "series of prejudicial errors" during the sentencing phase of the trial, and ordered a new hearing. At the conclusion of the second sentencing trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision on imposing the death penalty. As a result, on February 14, 1991, a judge commuted the sentence to a term of 30 years to life in prison.
Patrolman Anthony Garaffa is remembered as a hero whose loss devastated his family, his department, and his community. His former colleagues have never forgotten his sacrifice, referring to him as a "consummate gentleman" and recalling the anguish of that night. Teddy Rose became eligible for parole on January 19, 2022. In the years leading up to his eligibility and since, members of law enforcement and the Garaffa family have organized petitions, strongly opposing the release of the man responsible for taking the officer's life. As of July 2024, these efforts to keep his killer in prison continue.
