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Before becoming a Navy SEAL and defending his country in Afghanistan, Patchogue native Michael Murphy protected swimmers and bathers as a lifeguard at Lake Ronkonkoma.
Murphy's altruism would have led him to advise the teenager that the Suffolk police had vandalized "Michael was the type of person who would have liked to take this person under his wing and talk to him" , said Daniel Murphy after the police arrested the 14-year-old unidentified boy at his Ronkonkoma home.
The granite plaque commemorating Michael Murphy – who was killed in 2005 while he was driving a four-man SEAL team on a secret mission in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Pakistan – was broken Thursday in an incident who left the community dismayed and drew the attention of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo.
The Memorial, in a Brookhaven City Park on Ronkonkom Lake On the South Shore, there was a photo engraved of Murphy and a description of the clandestine operation of June 28, 2005 in which he had killed
A few hours after the discovery of vandalism, reward offers were made by Suffolk. Crime Stoppers and Brookhaven Officials. Cuomo, saying that he was "dismayed and disgusted" by the destruction of the memorial, said that the state would "fund entirely" his replacement.
"This very honored award commemorates and honors his leadership and service, and desecrating this honor is beyond the pale," Cuomo said in a statement Friday.
The detectives of the fourth squad arrested the teenager at three in the morning Friday at his home after an investigation, Suffolk County police said in a press release. The boy will be tried in family court for second degree criminal mischief at a later date, the police said.
