Warwick Top Cop Looking for a New Job?

Chief Garipoli has been great to work with, I’d hate to see him leave our area… but if he does take another position somewhere else I wish him good luck. Thanks for a job well done.

Allentown chief may go to Easton : The Morning Call Online

Allentown Police Chief Joseph Blackburn is the leading candidate for the vacant police chief position in Easton.

But Mayor Phil Mitman might have to go with his second choice, a Lancaster area police chief, if City Council balks at paying Blackburn $95,000 a year even though he wouldn’t be getting a benefits package. The amount is 46 percent more than the $65,000 budgeted for the job.

Some City Council members expressed concern Friday about the cost of hiring Blackburn, after receiving a packet of information from the mayor about Blackburn and Warwick Township Police Chief Richard F. Garipoli Jr.

Blackburn, 55, is a former state trooper who rose to the rank of deputy commissioner during his 26-year career, retiring in 1998. He joined the Allentown Police Department in August 2002 as executive assistant police chief at the same time the city hired Police Chief Stephen L. Kuhn.

Kuhn left after 15 months marked by clashes with the police union. Blackburn replaced Kuhn in January 2004. But Blackburn, who heads a 173-member force, will soon be out of a job. Mayor-elect Ed Pawlowski has said he intends to remove him from the $97,000-a-year position.

Garipoli, 49, is a retired Reading police officer who became Warwick’s police chief in 2001. He fell into the national spotlight three weeks ago after a Lititz area teenager allegedly shot his girlfriend’s parents to death in their Warwick home and fled with their 14-year-old daughter.

Before he joined the 15-member Warwick force, Garipoli served in Berks County as deputy chief for Muhlenberg Township’s 28-officer force. He had previously served as chief of Womelsdorf borough police. Before that, he served more than 21 years with the Reading police.

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