Saying goodbye to one of Riverhead’s finest

The procession of mourners snaked for a quarter mile through St. John’s Cemetery on Friday as Bobby Boden was about to be laid to rest.

Boden, 54, passed away Monday at Stony Brook University Hospital following a sudden illness.

The hundreds who turned out for his funeral proved how widely his loss was felt. Members of 13 police departments and two emergency response units were present to pay their respects to the 32-year veteran of the Riverhead Police Department. There wasn’t room left even to stand inside St. John the Evangelist Church’s large sanctuary.

The Riverhead Fire Department hung a massive American flag between two trucks’ extended ladders. A Suffolk County Police helicopter made a ceremonious pass over the funeral, and the wail of bagpipes played by the Eastern Long Island Police Pipes and Drums echoed several blocks away. See video below.

Boden’s wife and four children watched as attendees filed past his casket. Emotion ebbed and flowed across their faces; they gently touched and held each other as tears came in waves.

It was a big sendoff for a man with a big personality, according to his colleagues. Bob Haley is a retired Riverhead policeman who worked alongside Boden for seven years. He said the experience was an honor.

“He was a cop’s cop. The funniest,” Haley said. “Self-deprecating.”

He remembered a time two years ago when a representative from the pension system visited Boden and others who had been on the force for a long time to give them estimates of what their pensions would look like, whether they passed away before retirement or after. Haley missed the meeting but heard about it from Boden that night.

“First thing I hear when I walk in the squad room: ‘Haley! You hear about that guy that was here today?'” Haley ground out a gravel-voiced impression of his friend. “‘You wouldn’t believe how much money I’m worth! I’m not gonna tell Denise, I’ll have to sleep with one eye open.’ That was his sense of humor.”

Dixon Palmer was Boden’s squad partner in the detective division for five years.

“They split us up ’cause we were having too much fun,” Palmer said. As Sergeant-at-Arms, Boden was tasked with keeping meetings orderly, but Palmer said he would have to kick himself out of meetings more than anyone else.

“He was always the life of the party,” he said.

Boden’s personality and approach to his job was also felt by those who didn’t know him so well. One woman who was held up at gunpoint at the store she worked at said Thursday that she feared what might happen with the robber’s sentencing without Boden around to stay on top of the process. He looked out for her, she said.

Departments in attendance were the Riverhead Police, New York State Police, Suffolk County Police, Southampton Town Police, Southampton Village Police, Southold Police, Shelter Island Police, East Hampton Town Police, East Hampton Village Police, West Hampton Village Police, Quogue Police, Nassau County Police, Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, Riverhead Fire Department and the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps.