NYPD Honors Slain Detective With Boat In Sunset Park Harbor

An NYPD detective slain in the line of duty 30 years ago was honored Friday in Sunset Park with a boat in his name to commemorate his achievements.

Detective Anthony Venditti, 34, was killed in Queens on Jan. 21, 1986 during a shootout with members of the Genovese crime family, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said during the ceremony at Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park.

Venditti’s family, including his mother Anne Venditti, and other police officers came out to the unveiling of the 45-foot boat bearing his name on the side.

Venditti began his NYPD career in 1972 and served in the 50th and 48th precincts in the Bronx. Born and raised in the Bronx, Venditti considered himself a “Bronx cop,” the commissioner said, and called him “an outstanding and a proud member of the New York City Police Department.”

In 1984, Venditti was promoted to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau where he specialized in illegal gambling and investigated mobsters throughout New York City.

Two years later, he was killed in the fatal Queens shootout.

According to the New York Daily News, three suspects were arrested for Venditti’s death and acquitted but were charged with racketeering in separate cases.

“Tony gave his life fighting the earliest form of terrorism — the terrorism of organized crime,” Bratton said. “It seems appropriate he was honored here today.”

Bratton also noted that paying tribute to Venditti at the harbor fit his role of saving lives.

Venditti’s mother Anne still finds it difficult to grasp her son’s death and said she was proud to see him in an NYPD uniform. “To this day, his death remains unresolved,” she said during the ceremony.

“Water, boating, and fishing,” was Venditti’s passion, his mother said, and called the boat honor the “ultimate tribute.”