The former head of the Denver police bomb squad, who was blinded when a car bomb exploded in his face nearly 40 years ago, has died.
Jack Burns, father of five children and grandfather of five, died Wednesday. Graveside funeral services are planned at 10:15 a.m. Monday at Fort Logan National Cemetery.
In the 1970s, no one served on the bomb squad unless they volunteered, and there were no robots or special protective gear.
It was just like Burns to volunteer for an assignment that dangerous, said retired colleague Mike O’Neill, 65.
“He was very courageous,” O’Neill said.
Clifford Stanley, now 71, remembers that Fourth of July in 1972 when he, Burns and a third officer, Detective John Garrison, went to defuse a bomb planted at a house at 3915 Vrain St.
A bomb had already gone off at a Rust Sales Co. office and injured three men. The suspect was the estranged husband of a woman who worked at Rust. It was under the hood of her car that another explosive device was found.
Burns was the sergeant of a squad that had defused many bombs by hand.
“It was rough back then. There was a lot going on,” Stanley said. “People got blown up.”
The device attached to the engine was fairly unsophisticated. Burns told reporters at the time that he believed it would be fairly easy to disarm the bomb. When it blew up in his face, his right eye was blinded and his left eye was seriously damaged, leaving him legally blind. His right hand and two fingers of his left hand were blown off, according to a Denver Post article. Burns underwent a succession of operations.
Stanley’s right hand was blown off and his right leg was severely injured. He would remain in the hospital for more than two years, he said from his home in Arizona. “We paid a heavy price. I’m still limping around,” Stanley said. “Burns suffered a lot. He really got hurt.”
Loring Goodan was charged with first-degree assault, arson and criminal mischief. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for the Vrain Street bomb. He got an additional sentence for the other bomb.
O’Neill, raised in a police family, had known Burns most of his life and had been trained by the former firearms trainer. Several years ago, O’Neill saw Burns at several police retirement functions. “I couldn’t believe how positive and upbeat he was, always smiling and cordial,” O’Neill said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
