SWAT veteran dies at home in odd incident

Before the accident, Fred Thornton was a few months shy of retiring from the job he'd always wanted to do, his family said Saturday.

But something went terribly wrong inside the officer's garage Friday night as he was securing his SWAT equipment in his police car. More details emerged about Thornton's life on Saturday, a day after the 28-year Charlotte-Mecklenburg police veteran was killed by an exploding "flash-bang" grenade.

Thornton, 50, who had been a member of the department's SWAT team for 23 years, was the longest-tenured officer in the unit's history.

"That's all he always wanted to be - a police officer," older brother Tom Thornton said. "Not a desk cop. A street cop."

Memorials to Thornton sprang up across Charlotte on Saturday - flowers and his picture at a police event at Charlotte's Museum of History, flags at half-staff at government buildings uptown. Family members and police were coordinating a procession for his funeral, which will be Tuesday.

Thornton, a munitions expert, had just returned from a SWAT operation in northwest Charlotte about 3:45 p.m. Friday. That call ended without incident, and Thornton had returned home. He was standing inside his garage about 5:30 p.m., tending to the SWAT gear in his trunk and preparing it for the next assignment when the grenade went off. Police say it was an accident, and were investigating. He died at Carolinas Medical Center of massive internal injuries, according to police.

No one else was injured. Thornton is survived by a wife, Linda, and four children.

"All of our hearts are heavy," Police Chief Rodney Monroe said.

Life's calling

Aside from summer jobs and part-time gigs in college, CMPD was Thornton's only employer for nearly 29 years. The Winston-Salem native applied to be an officer almost immediately after graduating from UNC Charlotte with a degree in criminal justice, said brother Tom Thornton.

"I bought him his first bulletproof vest," he said. "I told him if you ever go to work without it, you send me a check for $450."

Fred Thornton was based in CMPD's North Tryon Division, but he applied to the SWAT team as soon as he could, ultimately specializing in the unit's use of explosive devices, his colleagues said.

SWAT team members are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside the abilities of regular officers, like serving high-risk arrest warrants, apprehending barricaded suspects and rescuing hostages.

Thornton was the veteran who gave "the speech" to new members of the 42-person team, said Detective D.B. Penix, a SWAT team sniper and a friend of Thornton's. He passed along the unit's traditions and made sure everyone knew there were high expectations.

After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, Thornton twice volunteered to work security with a medical team from Carolinas Medical Center that treated patients in Mississippi and New Orleans.

Penix, who also volunteered for the assignments, said he saw the softer side of his friend Thornton, who could project a gruff and intimidating exterior.

"Fred was meeting everybody at the front gate of the tent, carrying the oxygen tanks for someone who couldn't get out of their car, hugging the police officer who just lost his family," Penix said. "He put everyone else first."

Thornton planned to retire this summer and had talked about traveling and working with his brother's antiques business.

Members of the SWAT team had already picked out a retirement gift for the longest-tenured guy on the squad.

"It was a rocking chair," Penix said.