But the Drenth clan burst into laughter.
"Sean would have loved it," Colleen Drenth said later. "Whoever was offended was offended by Sean because that's who he was."
Courtesy of the Drenth Family
The Drenths
Courtesy of the Drenth Family
Drenth is flanked by his mother, Diane, and wife Colleen after winning the Phoenix Police Department's Medal of Valor.
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Silbert finished by spelling out an acronym whose definition would symbolize the complexity that has continued to mark this maddening case:
SDMF.
The letters were Sergeant Drenth's calling card.
Silbert later suggested the acronym was a term of endearment that stood for "Sean Drenth My Friend."
But others knew what SDMF really meant.
Two of the meanings were the creation of the Black Label Society, a heavy-metal band from Los Angeles. The sergeant adored the band and its mottos: "Strength Determination Merciless Forever" and "Society Dwelling Mother Fucker."
The third was somewhat more obvious: "Sean Drenth Mother Fucker."
Even before Sean Drenth died, these were the worst of times for the Phoenix PD.
A few weeks earlier, Officer Richard Chrisman had been charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of an unarmed South Phoenix man during a domestic-violence call.
The key eyewitness against Chrisman was a fellow cop whose crossing of the so-called "thin blue line" had deeply polarized officers who considered the arrest of one of their own outrageous and those who didn't.
Tensions were high inside the agency, especially at the South Mountain Precinct, where Chrisman spent his career and where Sean Drenth was transferred shortly before he died.
(The Chrisman murder case has yet to be resolved in court.)
In a broader scope, Drenth's death exposed the schism between a command staff headed by Harris and a highly politicized police union.
The divisiveness ran so deep that several cops refused, on the advice of their union bosses, to cooperate with investigators in the Drenth case by providing DNA samples or submitting to interviews until forced by court order.
Layered atop the dysfunction at the Phoenix PD was the undisputed fact that panicky cops had "compromised" the crime scene and no potential murder suspects were emerging other than possibly George Contreras, the ringleader of the off-duty scandal.
Some officers at the scene later expressed outrage when discussion among the troops centered on suicide.
"It completely, absolutely pissed me off," says Officer Jed Fisher, Drenth's patrol partner earlier in their careers.
"You'd have to show me a note that got signed under duress to prove to me that Sean committed suicide. I was thinking out there, 'It's almost like he knew the person [who killed him] and whoever took him on knew what the hell they were doing.' I like being a cop — Sean loved being a cop. I want to know who did this."
Heston Silbert hit on something when he spoke about his fellow cops not knowing how to grieve.
"Sean was the single most dedicated, passionate cop I ever worked with in my 19-year career. He was a stellar human being," Phoenix PD Detective John Hobbs wrote after Drenth's death. "The theory of [the off-duty] 'scandal' being a motive for a suicide is silly. Any of us who were close to him knew he was not stressed about it, nor ashamed. Of the officers still on the department, all were cleared of wrongdoing.
"There are other theories that abound, such as his ties to dirty cops or former cops having something to do with his demise. In the end, it's all conjecture based on mere hunch. Assuming it's a suicide, when the possibility exists of a cop-killing murderer lurking undetected, is truly wrong."
One officer told a detective that "the streets will eventually talk" about what happened to Sergeant Drenth.
But they haven't.
At best, the extraordinarily strange crime scene told conflicting stories, including a shotgun shell from Drenth's own weapon that entered just under his chin (suggesting suicide), concurrent evidence of a struggle of some magnitude (suggesting murder), and the improbable manner in which the shotgun laid perfectly on Drenth's body (suggesting someone placed it there).
Warren Brewer, the Phoenix PD detective who led the investigation, tells New Times that he's awakened untold times in the middle of the night trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.
Brewer says he looked hard into Drenth's background, checking the state of his finances (they were sound), whether the sergeant had a girlfriend on the side (none could be identified), or how things were going at work (great).
The only known possible stress in the sergeant's life was the state of Arizona's ongoing criminal investigation involving about 30 Phoenix PD cops, including Drenth. A grand jury later indicted three officers and George Contreras, but only Contreras still faces charges.
It remains unsubstantiated whether Drenth knew an indictment against him would've been forthcoming, too, though odds are that he did.
"The only thing that came up later that could potentially lean [toward suicide] was the pending indictment," Brewer says. "Sean loved being a cop and all that. But he loved playing music, too, and it wouldn't be fair to say that being a cop was his whole world, because he had other interests."
"What makes this case so interesting," says forensic psychiatrist Steven Pitt, "is the huge disconnect between the behavioral and physical evidence. Is that because the crime scene was tampered with, or is it because a person or persons are not telling us everything they know about Sean's behavior during the days and hours leading up to his death? I don't know. What I do know is that this story is like reading a book with two different covers and with two different endings. What I also know is that if the Phoenix Police Department ever wants to solve this case, they are going to have to go back and start from scratch."
