Middletown Police to Attend Funerals for Dallas Police Officers

The flags remain lowered to half-staff and a black bunting hangs over the entry to the Middletown Police Department after the ambush in Dallas, Texas that killed five law enforcement officers. 

"The thin blue line, there is a brotherhood there," Anthony Knapp, Middletown's Community Resource Officer, said. "We look out for each other." 

Both Officer Knapp and Sgt. Frank Scirpo have attended several funerals for fallen police officers, including for the two New York Police Department officers who were killed in a December 2014 ambush. 

"It's powerful," Sgt. Scirpo said, "It's very powerful to see everybody come together. When I was at Officer Lui's funeral to see officers from Texas and Colorado and California and Florida." 

Now, Knapp, Scirpo and ten other Middletown Police officers are flying to Dallas today to support the departments and loved ones laying to rest the victims of last Thursday's mass shooting attack that killed four DPD officers and one Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer. 

"It's always sad whenever one of our brothers or sisters dies in the line of duty, gets murdered like this," Sgt. Scirpo said. 

The attack in Dallas is the deadliest on law enforcement since 9/11. 

"It's not like we are going to Massachusetts," Knapp said. "This is Dallas, Texas. There is a lot involved trying to get this trip together." 

"I go because of what it means to the families of the fallen officers and their department, their fellow officers they work with," Scirpo said. 

Like departments across the country, Middletown Police knows how difficult it is to lose one of their own. 

"This is Sgt. (George) Dingwall," Knapp said in front of a tribute in the department's lobby. "He died January 28, 2000 in the line of duty. Fortunately, the only one that we did lose here. There are other departments that lose quite a bit compared to what we've gone through." 

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