Pubdate: Thu, 29 Nov 2007
Source: Berkshire Eagle, The (Pittsfield, MA)
Copyright: 2007 New England Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.berkshireeagle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/897
Author: Tony Dobrowolski, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

DARE MESSAGE STILL RESOUNDS

Outgoing Police Chief Reflects On The Program That He
Championed

PITTSFIELD -- As his days wind down in Pittsfield, outgoing Police
Chief Anthony J. Riello has been spending his final week revisiting a
program that he started 20 years ago.

Riello has been attending fifth-grade DARE (Drug Abuse  Resistance
Education) graduations in the city's  elementary schools. Yesterday,
he was at Egremont  Elementary, where, as Berkshire County's first
DARE  officer, Riello started the anti-drug, -gang and  -violence
initiative in Pittsfield in 1987.

"I wanted to be here," said Riello, who will officially  take over as
Falmouth's new police chief on Saturday.  "I felt that, in my last
week, it was appropriate for  me to see this through."

Police Officer Michael Ortega, DARE officer for  Pittsfield Public
Schools, told those in attendance  that Riello had even asked him to
accelerate the  10-week fifth-grade course so that he could attend the
  graduation before leaving for Falmouth.

Riello, who has been Pittsfield's police chief for 11  years, attended
a second DARE graduation ceremony  yesterday afternoon at Stearns
Elementary School and  similar exercises at Capeless and Crosby
elementary  schools on Tuesday. A fifth ceremony is scheduled for
today at St. Mark's School.

A former teacher who volunteered to be Pittsfield's  first DARE
officer when the city began the program, he  said that Egremont was
chosen as the first site of the  initiative because "it's just the way
the schedule  fell."

Whether it was the setting, or the program itself, it  was obvious
that he enjoyed yesterday's ceremony.

When it was his turn to speak to Egremont's 86 DARE  graduates, Riello
left the speaker's podium and sat on  the edge of a stage in the
school cafeteria where  teachers, administrators and the other invited
guests  had been placed.

"I want to say what I said 20 years ago, that there is  a war on
drugs," he said. "It's unfortunate that it's  always the best and the
brightest that have to fight  that war. ... Twenty years later, I
think we're winning  that war.

"You're in the front lines in the war on drugs. Say  'no' to drugs and
know that we're here for you."

At the end of the ceremony, Egremont's fifth-graders  presented Riello
with a beach towel on which Egremont  Eagles had been written in the
school colors, blue and  gold.

"Chief, we know you'll be very happy in your new job,"  said Egremont
fifth-grader Ciera Atherton. "We hope you  have the time to use this
towel at the beach."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Steve Heath