The "Gentleman of Headquarters" is gone.
That was my opening line on a story in 1999 when Joseph R. Bolesta Jr. retired at the age of 58 as the the longest serving cop on the force at that time. He served 33 years under four mayors and six police commissioners.
He died Thursday at age of 69.
My opening line still holds: The Gentleman of Headquarters is gone.
Joe Bolesta was one of the first senior police commanders I met when I started covering the department in 1994, and he was always ready to share, was never shy and offered articulate commentary. At the time, the department was blowing up internally with charges of racism and pickets and open dissent on command and City Hall.
Bolesta stayed above the fray. He patrolled the street during the 1968 riots, helped build the modern SWAT team, ran the budget, hired recruits and once, after suffering two heart attacks, joined young beat cops on patrol and stood in the street to direct traffic around a fender-bender (Baltimore Sun photo above from 1995). He gained notoriety for pulling a body out of the bear pit in the zoo in the 1970s.
I profiled him in 1999: He was proud of his profession. In describing his job, he reverts to the old vernacular, when you weren't just a police officer, you were "a po-lice" -- a term that veterans utter with reverence, recalling the days of long overcoats and call-box keys, when a cop was as important to a neighborhood as the parish priest.
Frederick N. Rassmussen wrote Bolesta's obituary in today's paper. A Mass of Christian burial will be held 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. John Roman Catholic Church, 43 Monroe St., Westminster.