Rankin police Chief Jeremi Gregory remembered as a champion of the community

Rankin police Chief Jeremi Gregory was the embodiment of a man walking in his purpose, with a magnanimous presence and a genuine soul, according to those who knew him best.

He was a cop’s cop, according to those who knew him well.

“He wouldn’t ask his cops to do anything that he hadn’t done himself, or that he wouldn’t do,” Rankin Police Sgt. Pedro Valles said. “He was a good guy all the way around. Serving the community was his passion.

“He believed in people. He didn’t just want to help — he wanted to change the narrative of people’s lives in this community.”

Gregory, 50, died Tuesday from a possible heart attack. Autopsy results are pending. Gregory served with the Rankin Borough Police Department since July 2018.

“It was about uplifting the people here by making it a safer area to be in,” Valles said. “He was the type of guy that said, ‘you don’t have to move just make your neighborhood better.’”

Gregory’s role in the community made him a leader and pillar of the community, said Ryan Wooten, Braddock’s police chief and a former Rankin police chief, who hired Gregory years ago.

Wooten said it was Gregory’s values and mindset that made him stand out.

“He had the same mindset, goals and values surrounding community that I had; eventually I made him a sergeant, and when I left I made him a chief,” Wooten said.

Gregory was indirectly trying to be “a role model to police officers of color, men of color, to just show people that we do it everyday, and you can be whatever you want to be in life,” Wooten said. Representation mattered for Gregory, being the example.

Any at-risk program that is out there , both Wooten and Gregory had a hand in building the foundation, he said. Gregory was passionate about creating programs that addressed life traps like drugs and gun violence for minors and helped promote their self-esteem.

Gregory was a champion of the younger generation, Wooten said. He was constantly being vigilant, showing them that outside of the household there are other folks who cared about them.

“For me, the community is like a house and it is built on a foundation of culture and values,” Wooten said. “He was part of that foundation, and the foundation is not as strong as it was now that he is gone.”

Wooten and Gregory met 27 years ago, they worked at different police departments, Sewickley Valley and Edgeworth, but were both responding to a bar fight. They formed a fast but lifelong friendship.

Twenty-seven years ago, the two walked into the scene of about six women fighting and hair being pulled. According to Wooten, “we basically laughed at the fact that they had half the valley here for this; we were like ‘c’mon man are you serious?’”

Their friendship carried outside of work, too.

“Oh, man, he loved fishing — he took us to a place up there North Apollo, he comes in with his own bass boat. I’m, like, what have you been watching on TV?”

New of Gregory’s death was the last thing Wooten expected to hear.

“This was life hitting me in the face — I had to be still for a minute,” Wooten said.

Todd Hollis, local attorney and Civil Rights advocate, worked with Gregory.

“You could just tell that he genuinely loved his community,” Hollis said. “He was a beautiful man, and I am really sorry to have lost him.”

But it was Joelisa McDonald, Rankin’s mayor, who said Gregory dedicated his entire life to Rankin.

The mayor said Gregory always kept her in check.

“Anytime I would accomplish something in my career as mayor he would playfully say, ‘You know, they can’t stand your butt,’ and he would encourage me to keep going.’”

McDonald met Gregory as a resident; her mother and Gregory had attended school together, “it was comical” when she became his boss, she said. Gregory graduated from Woodland Hills High School.

“He was very practical and had this great sense of humor,” McDonald said, ”and he loved his family. There wasn’t a day we spoke that he didn’t speak about his fiancé.”

McDonald said Gregory was so excited about Rankin exiting the state’s Act 47 financially distressed communities program. He thought that with the new developments at the Carrie Furnace, Rankin would be able to sustain itself as a independent police department and the officers would begin to receive competitive wages.

“The first day he wore his new uniform as chief you could feel the energy shift in his approach,” the mayor said. “He was so proud and put a lot of effort in trying to get things organized within our department.”

Gregory was the driving force behind many changes in the Rankin Police Department — new radios, cleaned evidence lockers, and two new hires.

He did this all while also working overnight part time for a construction service in Rankin.

McDonald said Gregory took pride in continuing the tradition of the department’s altruistic work, he was looking forward to the borough partnering with the police department for a community holiday party.

“We will greatly miss his presence within our borough,” she said.

According to an obituary, Gregory is survived by his two sons and a daughter and siblings, Jo Jo Gregory, Jamar Gregory and Jodie Gregory. The obituary said he was born in East Pittsburgh and was the son of Joseph Gregory, Sr. of Penn Hills and the late Iazetta (Robinson) Gregory. He would have turned 51 on Sunday.