IAPE Evidence Blog

The Plain Dealer, blog.cleveland.com
BYLINE: Pat Gal­bincea, The Plain Dealer
Link to Article

Euclid, OH

Euclid — Jim Repicky has been a police offi­cer for 32 years, but two of his worst days occurred in the past four years.

Eight months after he was sworn in as police chief in Feb­ru­ary 2007, a pop­u­lar police offi­cer, George Brentar, was chas­ing a speeder when his cruiser hydroplaned into a pole on an entrance ramp to Inter­state 90 near East 207th Street and caught fire, killing him.

And it was eight months ago that another well-liked offi­cer, Sgt. Kevin Blakely, shot him­self in front of Repicky and two other super­vi­sors after being asked why he hadn’t coop­er­ated with an inves­ti­ga­tion started in Jan­u­ary by the Cuya­hoga County Sheriff’s Office.

Repicky, who has spent 30 of his 32 years on the Euclid police force, retired Dec. 21.

“I’ll take with me many good mem­o­ries when I leave,” Repicky said, “but those two are eas­ily the worst two days of my life.”

Blakely’s sui­cide, which came so sud­denly and unex­pect­edly on April 20 that Repicky said no one in the room had time to stop him, is a major rea­son the 56-year-old Repicky is retiring.

On July 10, Euclid Mayor Bill Cer­venik named Capt. Tom Brinkman as act­ing chief, say­ing Repicky had lost the con­fi­dence of his fel­low offi­cers because of the Blakely incident.

Since Cervenik’s move, Repicky has been over­see­ing sev­eral projects and help­ing Brinkman with the department’s 2012 budget.

In Novem­ber, the Cuya­hoga County Sheriff’s Office found that Blakely, a 28-year vet­eran, had stolen $40,000 in cash from the department’s evi­dence room and had deposited $24,000 meant for the Euclid Fra­ter­nal Order of Police into his per­sonal check­ing account.

In review­ing the sheriff’s report, Assis­tant Cuya­hoga County Pros­e­cu­tor Rick Bell said there was enough evi­dence to present to a grand jury to have indicted Blakely for theft of both law enforce­ment trust fund money and police offi­cer union dues.

Despite the report, Repicky crit­ics like Euclid Ward 2 Coun­cil­woman Made­line Scarniench said she hasn’t changed her mind.

“No, my opin­ion of Jim Repicky hasn’t changed,” she said. “I read the report and still have some doubts. I don’t think Kevin worked alone. The report says mis­man­age­ment of the evi­dence room has been going on for years, but it doesn’t say how many years.

“We didn’t keep good track of records, and the prob­lem starts from the top down. That being said, we have to move on, and I wish the for­mer chief well in his retirement.”

As chief, Repicky said he accepted the respon­si­bil­ity but couldn’t under­stand why crit­ics put him on trial with­out know­ing the full story that he could not tell with­out com­pro­mis­ing the investigation.

“It was a bomb that blew up, and I was left try­ing to pick up the pieces,” he said.

Cer­venik said that despite the inci­dent with Blakely, Repicky was a good police chief.

“Jim was an asset to the Police Depart­ment and our com­mu­nity, and he’ll be missed,” Cer­venik said. “He went through one of the most dif­fi­cult times a police depart­ment can go through — a sit­u­a­tion which makes his retire­ment more dif­fi­cult — but he acted in a pro­fes­sional man­ner. He is a very good man.”

Repicky helped develop an emer­gency oper­a­tion plan for the city, had firearms upgraded, and formed a com­mit­tee that has enabled Euclid to receive nearly $3 mil­lion in grants in his time as chief.

He said the biggest high­light of his career was work­ing in the nar­cotics unit as a detec­tive from 1995 to 1997.

“At that time, it was a whole new world of inves­ti­ga­tion,” Repicky said. “As a detec­tive, you’d start with noth­ing but a tip and then work your way hop­ing for an arrest and a conviction.”

His nar­cotics career ended when he was pro­moted to cap­tain in Jan­u­ary 1997.

A humor­ous seri­ous inci­dent hap­pened in 1981, when three armed men robbed an auto parts store in the win­ter. Repicky was involved in a high-speed chase until the rob­bers left the free­way in Willoughby Hills and then tried to run for it. Trou­ble was, there was a foot of snow on the ground.

“You don’t run very far when there is that much snow on the ground,” Repicky said. “They also couldn’t get their guns out.”

Another high­light was meet­ing Pres­i­dent George W. Bush when he vis­ited Lin­coln Elec­tric in July 2008.

For now, Repicky will spend time with his wife of 31 years, Chris­tine, plus do vol­un­teer work, golf and fish. A good wrestler at 112 pounds for St. Joseph High School in 1977 – 78, he has made him­self into a low-handicap golfer.

He has not ruled out get­ting back into police work.

“To say I was dis­ap­pointed with what hap­pened ear­lier this year is an under­state­ment,” he said, “but I wouldn’t rule out work­ing in a police depart­ment again. For now, I’m ready to relax. To the pub­lic I will say this. They need to trust the Police Depart­ment. If there are inad­e­qua­cies or wrong­do­ings, we are able to police ourselves.”

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: pgalbincea@plaind.com, 216 – 999-5159

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