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Friend remembers his buddy ‘Mando’
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
John Mandopoulos “wasn’t anybody’s yes man” and wouldn’t stand for injustice, said one of his closest friends, who made the 12-hour drive from North Carolina for “Mando’s” funeral this week.
Jerry Platt, who retired from the Warren Police Department 11 years ago after 27 years on the force, said Mando was “rough on the edges. He was grizzly on the outside, but he was a lamb on the inside.”
Mandopoulos died Sunday at age 63.
Platt and Mando rode together three to four years when they patrolled Southwest Warren and then Northeast Warren in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“He was a super guy. I trusted him with my life, and he trusted me. He was a friend for life,” Platt said.
“You had to know him to understand him. He’d yell but he didn’t really mean anything. It’s just the way he was.”
Platt said police work causes some people to develop a tough exterior, especially if they work tough neighborhoods and deal with dangerous criminals, but Mando also had deep convictions about right and wrong.
“If you were right, he’d back you. He wouldn’t take no injustice. If he thought he was right, he wasn’t backing down. That’s what got him into trouble more than anything,” Platt said.
“He was a really good guy, but you had to know him. Once you knew him, he’d do anything for you. I know he’d do anything for me.”
When they worked together, he and Mando made a number of felony arrests, Platt said, and sometimes were criticized.
“There’s times you have to fight,” he said of encounters with suspects. “You come to work intending to go home. You’re going to do everything you can to make sure that happens. I’m sure mistakes are made, but it’s stressful. You don’t know what you’re going to do until you’re there.”
Karen Bogan, who worked 16 years in the police chief’s office with Mando and other chiefs, says she believes Mando “totally enjoyed his career.” He knew everyone in Warren, and “loved to reminisce about the old days — anything about police work the way it used to be,” she said. “He could go on for hours. That’s what he loved.”
Something a lot of people don’t know is that for years, he took care of his mother and sister, Bogan said. Though Mando was tough around many people, he never made her feel uncomfortable, Bogan said.