The Heritage State Park on Appleton Street in Holyoke was packed Sunday afternoon with between 100 and 200 concerned citizens, police officers, family and friends of Police Officer John DiNapoli on the 20th anniversary of his death.
At a memorial statue in a section of the park called DiNapoli Plaza, the dead officer’s son and daughter placed a wreath bearing a single blue light as contingents of officers from area police departments watched.
DiNapoli was shot to death in the line of duty on December 22, 1999.
The Holyoke High School Madrigal Choir provided the national anthem and Christmas songs, while 12-year-old Henry DiNapoli dedicated a solo song to the grandfather he never met.
DiNapoli’s son Andrew, or Andy, is now a sergeant on the Holyoke police force. In 1999 he was taking his first steps to becoming a police officer when his father was killed. He cannot completely explain why he continued on to do the job his dad did.
“I was drawn to it,” he said Sunday. “I wanted to follow in his footsteps.”
Now 20 years into his own law enforcement career, DiNapoli said his father’s memory never really escapes him.
“People ask me if it is hard to be a police officer here; does it bring back a lot of memories? I park in this parking lot, so every night I have to walk past this monument to go into the station. I see pictures of him throughout the building and when I leave at the end of my shift, I walk past his statue again. I drive past the intersection where he was killed every night. It’s part of my job.”
“For me, it is a constant reminder. I still can’t believe it happened to my dad, but it did. But good things can come from bad. We hold a golf tournament each year and we have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and it all get pumped back into the city.”
JoBeth DiNapoli Woodward was 25 years old when her father died. The memories remain fresh for her, too.
“Anytime there is a tragedy, especially one as tragic as this, it is hard for the family,” she said Sunday. “There was the death, the arrest and then the trail. It seemed constant. We didn’t get a chance to breathe. My dad was such a Holyoker himself that many people knew him and liked him. People still talk about him. With social media, you really can’t get away from it. They want to tell me about him, remember things about him. It keeps it so fresh.”
DiNapoli was working an administrative shift that day in December 20 years ago. He was unarmed, wearing street clothes and running errands for the department in an unmarked car. Nevertheless, when a call about a disturbance near the intersection of Walnut and Sergeant streets came over the radio, he headed to the scene ready to backup responding officers. Court records said he told the dispatcher he would, “take a look around.”
When he arrived at the scene, he found two men fighting. One of the combatants, 26-year-old Eddie Morales, saw the police vehicle and ran away. DiNapoli followed in the car.
About a block away, near the intersection of Hampshire and Walnut streets, Morales stopped running from DiNapoli. He spun around pulling a gun from his pants and started firing into the car. DiNapoli put the car in reverse and started to back away, but he didn’t get far. Investigators found 10 rounds hit the car. Five of those hit DiNapoli.
Emergency medical technicians tried to keep DiNapoli alive as they rushed him to the Baystate Medical Center, but he was dead when they got to the hospital.
It hit the department and the city hard.
“The department was devastated when John was shot,” Police Chief Manuel Febo said. “It was just complete disbelief.”
“It was heartbreaking at the time,” Mayor Alex Morse said as he waited to issue a proclamation. “I was 10 -years-old and they gathered us in the school cafeteria to tell us what had happened. It was heartbreaking then and still is. But, as solemn a day as it is for the city, we are happy that John DiNapoli’s legacy has lived on. We are proud to have his son Andy on the police force. This (ceremony) gives us an opportunity to thank all the members of our police department for everything they do on a daily basis. They put their lives at risk. We also have to thank their families for sharing them with us.”
“It is nice to see so many people come out,” Febo said. “I hope people continue to come out for 10 or 20 years to pay respects for his sacrifice.”
Sunday was an opportunity for those who knew John DiNapoli to talk about him to people who never met the man and to share stories those who did maybe never heard before.
One of DiNapoli’s best friends, Denny Eagan said that as good a cop as he was, DiNapoli was also quite the wise guy ready to play a practical joke on anyone who needed it. Eagan said he believed he was DiNapoli’s favorite target.
Manny Febo remembered a fellow police officer who made the job and the brotherhood mean something.
“When I was a recruit before I went to the academy, I rode with John. As a young officer you would ride with older more experienced officers,” he said. “When I first got on the job in 1995, I had a wife and a toddler at home and money was really tight. He asked me if I had everything I needed for the academy. I told him I had a few things to get, but, you know, there wasn’t a lot of money. He took me to Holyoke Sporting Goods, bought speakers, sweatpants, everything I needed for the academy. And, he would never take a penny from me. That’s the kind of guy he was. “
“I think that’s when I realized I was joining something special.”
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Holyoke remembers John DiNapoli 20 years after he was killed in the line of duty - MassLive.com
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