MANDEVILLE, La. — Inside Captain Vincent Liberto’s funeral, 3,000 people from around the Mandeville community and across the country filled the auditorium. Hundreds more were turned away, as the line to get into the visitation wrapped around the building.
Vincent ‘Vinny’ Liberto was killed in the line of duty on Sept. 20, taken too soon. But the lasting impact he made in his community and his country could be felt Friday.
“To see this community come out and wrap their arms around you and wrap their arms around us… that act of violence doesn’t define us, doesn’t define who we are,” Mandeville Police Chief Gerald Sticker said.
Vincent Liberto wasn't just a man of service though, he was a father and a brother. A family man who always made time for his children no matter what was happening.
His younger brother Ignatius Liberto said Vinny told him to think like a man of action, but act like a man of thought. Then he made everyone laugh.
“He taught me that watching a Saints game on Sunday does count as your Catholic obligation!” Ignatius Liberto said, glancing to the priests behind him for approval. “Because the good lord knows we certainly did enough praying during the game as well as invoking his name early and often.”
But the tributes that brought the most tears came from his seven children, many of whom followed their father into careers in law enforcement and service.
“That man inspired me my entire life. All I knew was that I wanted to be him,” Michael Liberto, Vinny’s son and a deputy with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, said.
“Rest easy pops, I’ve got the watch from here," said Vincent Liberto III, the oldest of his seven children.