Don Stratton: Remembering Inspector Tony DePalma

I had to attend the funeral of a dear friend this week. I was out of the country when I received the news, and I tried to get back in time for the FOP memorial service, but I couldn't get a flight.

I did make it to the funeral for someone whom I have always felt never received enough recognition for his work with the Lima Police Department. Inspector Anthony J. “Sonny” DePalma was a good officer, a good leader, and a good friend.

We were both appointed to the LPD in 1960, just a few months apart. We both rose through the ranks at about the same pace. Although we were friends and neighbors, we never really worked together very much until we held the rank of inspector, with Tony commanding the detective division at the same time that I commanded the uniform division. At that point we worked very closely for about eight years.

At the LPD, we called him Tony, but to his friends and family he was “Sonny.” I always felt that his nickname should be spelled “Sunny” because of his disposition. I was talking to another retired officer, and neither of us could remember ever seeing him angry. I always envied his ability to stay calm in any situation. You had to know him really well to determine the slight change of inflection that came when he was upset about something, and even that disappeared in a moment.

Tony had a genuine love for people, and could relate to anyone. He grew up in south Lima when the area's residents were largely of Italian descent. He knew nearly everyone on the south side, even after the ethnicity of the area changed.

During the riots of the late 1960s, Tony was the only man, black or white, that then Chief William K. Davenport trusted to send into the area to talk to community leaders and try to calm things down. He knew that Tony was widely known and respected in the black community, and probably would be received better than even Davenport himself, who was black.

Tony's demeanor and ease with people made him the best police interrogator I ever knew. After others had given up on getting a person to divulge information or to confess, Tony could walk into the room and have the person pouring out his heart and soul, sometimes after only a few minutes.

Despite his rapport with people, Tony hated to talk in front of an audience, or a TV camera. When we were both attending Lima Technical College, we had a mandatory speech course. When Tony had to stand in front of the class and make a speech, he knew nearly every class member personally, but I still can remember the veins standing out in his neck from nervous tension. Because of his shyness toward crowds and cameras, Tony never got as much media coverage as some of us did, preferring to stay in the background and let someone else do the talking.

Tony's sense of humor was legendary; his son even mentioned it at the funeral, calling it sometimes “warped.” One had to admire the creativity of it sometimes, even if you were the brunt of it.

We used to have a local character who many people will remember for his wandering around town wearing a Superman costume. We even had calls from strangers on Interstate 75 who saw him leaning over the railing of the Reservoir Road overpass in full costume, glaring at passing motorists.

One time when I came back from a vacation, on the bulletin board was a picture of our local Superman, in full costume, seated in my office, at my desk, smiling broadly. Under the picture was a caption that read, “The new Uniform Division Inspector.” At that point I really wished that Tony's office and mine had not had locks that could be opened with the same master key.

I think the Rev. David Ross summed it up best at the funeral Mass when said, “Sonny was a good man; not a perfect man, but a good man.”

Because there has only been one perfect man in history, that probably was the ultimate compliment.