Bel Air Deputy Chief Dupre Was 'Cop's Cop'

lived his life at the .

It’s where he spent 12-hour workdays, once brought a deer back to the parking lot after a morning hunt and, most importantly, met his wife.

During his more than three decades in the department, Dupre worked his way up from being an auxiliary officer to the department’s second in command.

Deputy Chief Dupre retired July 7 at age 54. Less than three weeks later, on July 26, his year-long battle with cancer came to an end when he died at his White Hall home.

Chief of Police said provided a necessary contrast to his personality.

“If officers or citizens came in here and talked to him, he would sit down for lengthy discussions with them and by the time they walked out the door, they felt that they’d been heard,” Matrangola said from his office last week. “And that’s the opposite from me. So we were a good combination.”

The two officers ate lunch together every day from the time Dupre was appointed deputy chief on Jan. 17, 2006 until he became sick in 2010. The other member of the department Dupre spent a lot of time with was his wife, Karen.

They met in September 1991 when Matrangola hired her. The couple married on June 23, 2001.

“So it took him 10 years to notice her,” Matrangola said. “Maybe his observation skills aren’t what I thought they were.”

The Rev. Gerald Hubble wed the Dupres, and at Monday’s memorial service, Hubble said Armand was at peace.

“If Armand could speak, he might say, ‘Miss me, but let me go,’” Hubble said.

Officers from throughout Maryland attended Monday’s service where Dupre was remembered by Matrangola as a “cop’s cop”—the ultimate professional compliment.

The chief joked that Dupre had only lied to him once, when he served him chili for lunch.

“He would tell me it was beef chili to get me to eat it. And he’d go, ‘Oh, you like that? It was deer [meat],’” Matrangola said, laughing in his office.

Dupre duped his boss one other time, when he began his stint as the department’s K-9 officer in 1990. Matrangola didn’t think Dupre’s yellow lab, Woody, could be both a protection dog and a patrol dog.

“He came back in a week or two later and he said, ‘Have you decided that you’d let me take this dog to [patrol training]?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, can he bite?’ And in his real dry sense of humor he said, ‘Go ask the detective sergeant,’” Matrangola said. “So apparently what happened here when I was off on a weekend, he had the dog in the dispatch and the sergeant came in the room uninvited, [and the dog] nailed the sergeant and bit him in the arm. … I eventually gave in because Armand was right—the dog could bite.”

The chief said Woody was the only dog in Maryland trained for protection and patrol.

That Dupre nearly finished his life and career at the same time is fitting, but his colleagues wish that was not the case.

“We look at retirement maybe a little bit different than everybody else does, and I think the agency’s really sad that he didn’t get that opportunity,” Matrangola said.

Matrangola fought back tears during Monday’s service. It was important, the chief said, to remember Dupre for “who he was and where he started.”

After the service at in Bel Air, dozens of police cars led a procession to Highview Memorial Gardens in Fallston. About 20 Bel Air officers took a detour through town.

In front, Matrangola drove his Chevrolet Trailblazer down Main Street. The rest of the department’s patrol cars followed. In between, closely trailing the chief, was a hearse that carried Dupre.

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