Injury leads to early retirement for 23-year New Kensington police officer Anthony Grillo

Anthony Grillo knew as a boy that he wanted to be a police officer, and that’s what he became.

“I’ve been in uniform my whole life,” said Grillo, 49, a native of Lower Burrell. “I just knew what I wanted to do in life.”

Grillo is retiring from law enforcement after 23 years as a patrol officer in New Kensington. His last day is Friday.

While he would have been eligible for retirement at age 50, Grillo’s is coming sooner. He’s ending his career under a disability pension after being hurt on the job during a call in 2017.

Grillo and other officers were taking a potentially armed suspect into custody following a shooting in the Parnassus area of the city. Approaching cautiously and with their weapons drawn, Grillo said he fell from a retaining wall. With his weapon out, he wasn’t able to brace himself and came down on his left shoulder.

Surgeries failed to fix the damage, and he is left with limited movement of his left arm. He’s been on light administrative duty or leave since.

After spending most of his career on the busy 3 to 11 p.m. shift, Grillo had gotten put on daylight just before he was hurt.

“I got injured pretty much right before the gentlemen who were on daylight retired,” he said. “I never got to enjoy the daylight shift.”

‘It’s a calling’

Grillo remembers going to downtown New Kensington with his grandparents in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the city was thriving.

“I would see a police car and I remember asking my grandparents if they knew the police. They did. They were from that area,” he said. “I wanted to ride in a police car. Somehow, they made the arrangements. I remember going around the block on Fifth Avenue and Fourth Avenue in the front seat of a police car. That was the biggest joy for me.”

The desire to become a police officer stayed with Grillo through his teenage years and graduating from Burrell High School in 1990.

“It’s a calling,” he said of working in law enforcement. “You’re either born to do it or it’s something that’s instilled.”

Following high school, Grillo was on active duty in the U.S. Navy for four years. After an honorable discharge, he graduated from the Allegheny County Police Academy in 1994.

Grillo worked part-time as a police officer for a couple years, and one year with Carnegie Mellon University’s police, before taking the test to be a New Kensington officer in 1997 — on which he said he scored first out of 120 candidates.

Grillo maintained his same rank as a patrol officer for his entire 23 years with the city.

“Everybody has different desires and ambitions in life,” he said. “I was content being a patrol officer. There’s honor in that. There’s no shame in that. I have an honorable profession.”

Mayor Tom Guzzo praised Grillo.

“Anthony was a dedicated officer for our city. He worked diligently and cared about the community,” he said.

Trained in crisis intervention, Grillo said he enjoyed deescalating situations.

“I’m a people person. I enjoy engaging with people, talking people out of situations and defusing it the best way possible and gaining their trust,” he said. “I truly believe that people are inherently good.”

Grillo said he treated people, including those he arrested, with respect. That respect came back to Grillo from people who would offer their help to him and thanked him for helping them.

“Whatever the case may be, it is rewarding in its own right when someone comes up to you at a later time and thanks you,” he said. “That is the joy of the job.”

‘You have to go on’

The downsides of the job are deep — poverty, depression, death. Police see people on the worst days of their lives.

“They look at you. You try to be their savior. You try to do the best you can,” he said. “You develop a very thick skin. If you don’t, you’re going to have a very hard career.

“Some people don’t show emotion. Some people do,” he said. “Me, I’m the type of person that if you want to cry, if you’re having a problem, I’ll shed a tear with you.”

One of the worst moments of Grillo’s career was in 2011, when Lower Burrell Officer Derek Kotecki died in front of him.

A fugitive, Charles Post, ambushed and shot the 40-year-old Kotecki the night of Oct. 12, 2011. Grillo was the first officer to arrive on the scene.

“Seeing Derek die and arriving on the scene and confronting the actor and watching him basically commit suicide right in front of you and turning to see an officer down and you and another officer are on either side of this officer and and you’re trying to revive him and you can’t and you’re dealing with that… that takes a toll. That really hits home,” he said.

“It traumatizes you to some degree,” Grillo said. “You go on with your career because you have to go on.”

A year later, Grillo received the “Above and Beyond” award from the Pittsburgh-based Amen Corner for his actions that night. Former Lower Burrell police Chief Tim Weitzel nominated Grillo for his actions attempting to apprehend Post and trying to save Kotecki.

“I was initially reluctant to accept it,” Grillo said. “I took it in honor of Derek Kotecki and his family.”

‘Honor is everything’

Seeing how things have changed in police work since he started in the late 1990s, and the protests across the country today, Grillo doesn’t know what the job will be like for the next generation of officers.

“A lot of it has to do with communication and both sides listening,” he said. “That’s the key to understanding one another. That’s going to be the first approach to possibly somehow healing everybody or trying to get back to some type of normalcy.”

Looking back, Grillo says he had a “blessed, honorable and fulfilling career.

“Honor is everything to me at the end of the day. All you have is your name,” he said. “I’m not perfect. We all make mistakes in life. You learn from the job. You learn from mistakes.

“I can walk out the door and hold my head up high and know my name is intact.”