CLEVELAND — The Ripepi Family announced the recipients of the police K-9 grants from the funds raised during The Danny Ripepi Memorial Concert that was held to honor Danny Ripepi who was killed in September 2020 when a dump truck caused a highway sign to fall onto his vehicle.
The proceeds from the concert that was held on Sept. 8, 2021, at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica were used to purchase five police dogs for five police departments in the Greater Cleveland area.
"Danny’s biggest thing was he always gave back to the community and I went to my brothers and said, 'I want to have a rock concert and I want to donate K9s,' and they thought I was nuts," brother Ed Ripepi said. "But we pulled it off and made magic happen."
The following departments will each receive a police K-9 officer and a complete six-week training course at Excel K-9 Services located in Hiram:
- Brunswick Police Department
- Cleveland Police Department
- Euclid Police Department
- MetroHealth Medical Center Police Department
- Parma Heights Police Department
For MetroHealth and Parma Heights, it marks the first time in their department's history of having a K-9.
"We’ve had several incidents over the years where a K-9 would have been totally beneficial to us, just the ability to sniff out things we can’t see or find," MetroHealth Director of Safety Chief Frank Bova said.
"That’s going to be likely having extra manpower," Detective Adam Sloane with Parma Heights Police said. "We’re a smaller department so we only have a couple guys on the road at a time, so to have that additional backup is a huge help to us."
The Ripepi family said planning for the second annual Danny Ripepi Memorial Concert is underway for late fall in 2022. Details will be announced soon, according to the funeral home.
Our department would like to thank the A. Ripepi and Sons Funeral Home & SRT K9 Unit for selecting us as one of the 5 initial recipients of the Danny Ripepi Memorial Concert Grant.We are truly honored to be entrusted with this grant to start our first-ever K9 Unit. #DannyRipepi pic.twitter.com/hA1J9XJTaG
— Parma Heights Police (@ParmaHtsPolice) March 14, 2022
The first concert was created to honor Danny, who believed in giving back to the community.
“His gentle demeanor, kind heart and his love as a devoted husband, dad, brother and friend to many, is the legacy he leaves behind. Now is our time to continue his legacy in the most poignant way, by giving back,” said the family in a news release
RELATED:Driver killed on I-480 Thursday morning identified as A. Ripepi & Sons funeral director
The K9s are expected to meet their handlers for the first time during training this June.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
