By Rebecca White and Leonard Greene
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An NYPD bomb squad detective and his sergeant sister retired this month on the same date their father left the department years ago.
Det. Kenny Dean, 59, and his sister, Sgt. Maryann Palonco, 53, put in their papers on Feb. 3, the same date their father called it quits after 38 years on the force.
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Not to be outdone, Dean’s canine partner, Holland, who is done sniffing for explosives, has also joined the ranks of the retired, although he’s not exactly sure about why his schedule has suddenly changed.
“When I work, he works. When I’m off, he’s off,” Dean, a cop for 36 years, 24 with the bomb squad told the Daily News. “He’s laying here next to me. I think he’s starting to figure out that either we’re on vacation, or I keep telling him, ‘You’re retired buddy. We’re good now.’
As for Palonco, it was just time.
“My brother and I, we wanted to go out on that day, the same day (my dad) retired,” she said about the special date. “It just felt right. I had just hit my 30th year in June. I’m 53 now. I feel like it was just time. I feel like I need to just start this next chapter and start to do new things.”
Palonco, who retired a sergeant special assignment out of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South and Dean are part of a real-life “Blue Bloods” family. Her husband, William Palonco, a retired sergeant, served 26 years in the department before becoming a nurse. And Dean’s son, who is also named Kenneth, like his dad and his grandfather, has been a cop for three years.
“He’s just following the footsteps of his dad, his grandfather, his aunt and uncle,” Palonco said.
Holland, a 12-year-old Labrador, doesn’t get a pension despite nearly a decade of service, but he does get a lifetime of food and medical benefits from the department.
“My current K9 partner was getting up there in age,” Dean said. “He was still doing the job, but I figured why not leave at this time.”
Holland is named for Officer Richard Holland, a Queens transit cop who died from a 9/11-related cancer.
Department dogs are often named after cops who died in the line of service, Dean said.
Dean’s first K9 partner, Parker, was named after Officer Robert Parker, who was shot and killed with his partner Patrick Rafferty while responding to a domestic call in Brooklyn in 2004.
The Sergeant’s Benevolent Association lauded Palonco, a union delegate, for her 30 years of service, and how she decided to retire.
“Maryann’s career reflects a family connection to the department that spans generations,” the union said on X. “She was appointed on the same date as her father, Kenneth Dean Sr ., who served nearly four decades. In a rare family milestone, Maryann and her brother, First Grade Detective Kenny Dean of the Bomb Squad, retired on the same date 27 years after their father retired—a powerful and meaningful way to bring that family legacy full circle.”
Dean and Palonco said retirement will be an adjustment. They said they wish their father, who died seven years ago at the age of 80, could have seen them go out together.
“He worked and got up every day and did his thing,” Palonco said. “We were proud of that. We looked up to him. He always made us take the tests for the police department. As soon as we were eligible, he would take us. I took the test. I was graduating college. I got called. So off I went. He was like, give it a try. You gotta do it. He really was the best.”
With Thomas Tracy
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