In his almost 40 years on the Newton Police force, Lt. Bruce Apotheker has worked with eight chiefs, helped with cases both local and international, and pushed to make the city a safer place for people of all backgrounds.
One of his favorite parts of the job has been his daily interactions with community members.
“To me, being a police officer is engaging with the public,” said Lt. Apotheker, who will leave the force on Nov. 1, after turning 65, the state’s mandatory retirement age for police officers. “Every day I love meeting new people.”
Residents often recognize Lt. Apotheker, who is the commander of the Community Service Bureau, when he’s in uniform since he is a fixture at city events and is the department spokesman. In fact, on a recent weekday, he couldn’t walk across Washington Street in West Newton without a pickup truck driver shouting a greeting.
Lt. Apotheker, who prefers to praise others in the department rather than focus on his own accomplishments, reflected on his life and career ahead of leaving the force.
Respecting differences
As one of Newton’s first Jewish police officers, Lt. Apotheker helped break barriers and has been at the forefront of the department’s efforts to fight bigotry.
The Boston native moved to the Garden City and graduated from the Newton Public Schools.
After graduating from the police academy in 1983 and joining the department, he was assigned to patrol the Upper Falls and Needham Street area. He was the first and only person in his family to become member of the force.
His parents “were very proud of me being a police officer,” he said.
Lt. Apotheker, who graduated from Boston College, said his mother and father taught him ethics, morals, values, and to “respect differences. … There’s so much to be learned from others.”
One of the department’s most important jobs is to “ensure that everyone’s rights [are] maintained no matter who they were,” he said.
This is especially true after racist/bias incidents. Lt. Apotheker said he hopes the public knows that the department is committed to investigating them.
“They’re a cancer,” he said. “People have a right to be who they want to be, and we’ll do everything we can to ensure that right.”
Local, international cases
Over his career, Lt. Apotheker has helped on the investigations of several notorious Newton crimes, including the 1993 explosion at H. C. Starck, Inc. (which disabled 11 of the City’s active-duty firefighters, the Associated Press stated); the 1997 Louise Woodward fatal shaken-baby-syndrome case; and the deadly fire at 200 Boylston Street in 2000.
Press from around the world covered the story of Woodward, a British nanny who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 8-month-old Matty Eappen.
Lt. Apotheker, who was a patrol supervisor at the time, and others questioned Woodward after receiving a call about a baby who was not breathing. He remembered thinking the boy’s death would be a big story, and it was.
He said for police, the time between knowing of a death and telling the family is terrible.
“It’s among the saddest thing you could ever do in the department,” Lt. Apotheker said.
Hopes for the department’s future
Lt. Apotheker is glad the department is being led by Chief John Carmichael, who is committed to community policing.
However, Lt. Apotheker is concerned there are not enough officers to cover walking beats, an essential tool in community policing. When he began, he said there were 204 Newton officers. Now there are about 138.
By walking a beat, officers can chat one-on-one with residents, visit businesses, and learn more about the community.
“They build a lot of bridges and partnerships,” he said.
Police officers also continue to address mental health calls which have “exponentially increased,” Lt. Apotheker said. He and others advocated for an embedded social worker in the department, and one was eventually hired.
As he prepares for his final work day, he praised his Newton colleagues and called them “decent, hardworking people.”
He also said that dispatchers are the “unsung heroes of the department,” preferring to discuss their lifesaving efforts instead of his own accomplishments during almost 40 years with the department.
Asked what the best part of the job has been, Lt. Apotheker said, “To know that if I go to someone’s house and they’ve been victimized … I can reassure them that the department and City is behind them 100 percent. That’s a great feeling.”
