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THIS STORY ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON SEPT. 17, 1995

"The pen mightier than sword'

By Christine Guilfoy

LEOMINSTER - Carrying two slender silver pens - each less than 6 inches long - proved a life-saving stroke of luck for Officer Thomas R. Kent.

The officer, responding with a fellow patrolman to a report of a prowler in a quiet Leominster neighborhood, was shot in the chest during a Friday night shootout with a man convicted 26 years ago of killing two people during a robbery. Uncharacteristically, Kent was not wearing his bulletproof vest.

The bullet that struck the seven-year police veteran hit two Cross pens the officer was carrying in his left shirt pocket. The pens redirected the path of the bullet down into his abdomen.

FOUR HOURS

Kent underwent surgery for four hours Friday night at the University of Massachusetts Hospital in Worcester. He remains in serious condition in the intensive care unit. Doctors said it was too early to say exactly how long the police officer would be hospitalized, but indicated he probably would be at UMass for at least seven days.

The bullet lodged in the back of his body, narrowly missing his left kidney, said Dr. Nilima Patwardhan. Patwardhan said Kent is expected to fully recover.

While Kent was described as "exceptionally lucky" by Patwardhan, he has had a mixture of good and bad luck during his 32 years. And that continued Friday night.

To Leominster Police Chief Peter R. Roddy, the life-saving writing instruments prove that "the pen is mightier than the sword.

"And here, it even deflected a bullet," he added.

DIED AT HOSPITAL

Kent and Officer Dwayne Flowers arrived at 640 Union St. shortly after 8:30 p.m. Friday and confronted the suspected prowler, John J. MacNeil. Roddy said the suspect opened fire, striking Kent in the left chest. Flowers wasn't hit. The officers returned the gunfire, wounding MacNeil, who later died at Leominster Hospital.

Police sources said Flowers is believed to have fired the shots that felled the assailant.

Rebecca J. Kent, the wounded officer's wife, said her husband was scheduled to be off Friday, but he had traded shifts with another officer. The car in which he was riding was assigned to another sector, but he and Flowers took the call when no other cruiser was available, police said.

For reasons that neither Roddy nor Kent's wife can explain, Kent went without his bulletproof vest. Her husband always wore the vest, she said.

Flowers was wearing a vest, but was not hit.

RIB HELPED

The Cross pens and a rib helped redirect the bullet, according to Patwardhan.

Teamwork was apparently a key, and the car in which Kent and Flowers were patrolling was the only one in the city that contained two officers Friday night.

When Officers Angel A. Amoros and Patrick J. Aubuchon came to the Kent house Friday night and asked Rebecca Kent to step outside, she just couldn't believe it could be anything too serious.

So when Aubuchon and Amoros said Kent had been shot, she thought: "He shot himself in the toe," Mrs. Kent recalled.

"Where?" she asked. "In the chest," she was told.

Rebecca Kent is the daughter of 32-year veteran police Officer Dominic A. Tata, and she understood that injuries do happen. But nobody, including Roddy, could remember a police officer being shot here.

"It's a shock," Roddy said. "It's something you know is out there, but want to believe will never happen."

The officers did have one comforting piece of news for Mrs. Kent: Her husband had remained conscious and was speaking throughout the ordeal.

Rebecca Kent was home for a short time yesterday afternoon before making a return trip to the hospital she had left only hours before.

"He's a wonderful man and a good father," she said of her husband yesterday afternoon. The Kents have three sons ranging in age from 13 to 7 years. Outside of his police work, she said football and family are the big parts of his life.

COACHES FOOTBALL

Two of his three boys play football, and Kent coaches a Pop Warner team, the Bandits. He is also the offensive coordinator of the Leominster Lions, the city's semiprofessional team.

Kent's physical strength will help get him through the traumatic injury, Rebecca said. "It's part of what saved his life," she said.

When he was still a teen-ager, he was in a serious car accident that almost took his life. He eventually recovered after extensive facial reconstructive surgery.

SURGERY AS INFANT

As an infant, he underwent abdominal surgery to relieve a potentially life-threatening condition. He still carries the scar from that operation.

Rebecca said they met when they were students at Leominster High School and he was a player on the high school football team. Kent was born and grew up in Leominster, attending the George Street and Northwest schools before graduating from the high school in 1981.

He entered the Air Force after graduation and spent time overseas in Guam and other locales. He was a military policeman. After the service, he returned here and joined the police force.

Her husband was going into surgery when she arrived on Friday. After surgery, the ventilator prevented the two from speaking. The two could only squeeze hands in support and love.

"When they brought the pen in, I started laughing," Rebecca said of her experience at the hospital. She said she has no idea where her husband got the pens.

"When I saw the pen, I thought, he has the best luck in the world," she said.

Telegram & Gazette reporters George Snell and Richard Duckett and correspondent Anne E. Blanchette contributed to this report.