By LARRY MAIER
As a senior probation officer in Nassau County with over 20 years on the job, Eileen Callahan-Fiechter of Baldwin has dealt with convicted felons daily. She has seen justice served and justice denied.
As a mother, Callahan-Fiechter experienced life's ultimate injustice, the brutal and senseless murder of her son, David R. Portmore, a seaman apprentice in the U.S. Navy.
On June 27, 1991, Portmore was returning to his post aboard the Battleship Missouri, which was stationed in Long Beach, Calif., from a part-time job he held at an area restaurant. He never made it back to the ship. Police found him shot to death in his car, his wallet and wedding ring ripped from his lifeless body.
A man was arrested and charged with murder. After a brief, four-hour trial, the man, who Callahan-Fiechter claims had bragged about killing a sailor, was found not guilty. She remembers feeling out of control and the need to get that control back.
I do not say I lost my son. He was taken from us, said Callahan-Fiechter, her eyes welling up with tears as she tells the story. I felt like I had to do something if only to try to help prevent other families from going through something like this.
So, immediately following the trial, Callahan-Fiechter and her husband Rene Fiechter, an assistant district attorney in Nassau County, founded the David Portmore Memorial Fund for Crime Prevention.
The couple initially raised about $40,000 dollars from private donations. Each year since its funds inception, the fund has awarded a grant to a local crime prevention project or group.
This year, Callahan-Fiechter is presenting a grant of $1,500 dollars to the Nassau County Probation Department to support the crime prevention work of the department's Operation Nightwatch
