Community Center

Farewell to a Protector: VIPD Detective Delberth Phipps, Jr. Laid to Rest

“Today is not a celebration,” said Governor Albert Bryan on Saturday as he addressed those who had gathered to say farewell to VIPD Detective Delberth Phipps, Jr. who was shot and killed in the line of duty.  For the family, friends, and the brothers and sisters-in-arms of Det. Phipps, those words rang true. “Today is mourning…because this is one of us that has gone much too soon,” he said.  That was the poignant theme threading through the remarks of those who spoke at Detective Phipps’s funeral service – that a positive presence in the community had been ripped away from them at a critical time.  To his fellow officers in the VIPD and beyond, “Detective Phipps Jr. was a cop's cop  – a LEO,” said Sergeant Ludrick Thomas, special assistant to the commissioner. “Not astrology like a Cancer or Aries, but a proud law enforcement officer, like his father before him.”Being the named junior of his police officer father meant that Detective Phipps was known by many in the blue fraternity l...