By Tom Waring

Times Staff Writer

When police officer Daniel Gleason was murdered back in 1986, he left a wife and six young children.

The youngest, Craig, was just 3 months old. The oldest, Danny, was a freshman in high school.

Danny remembers June 5, 1986, as a beautiful day, with summer vacation about to begin. He attended classes at Cardinal Dougherty that day, and when he returned home to the 1200 block of E. Cheltenham Ave. in Oxford Circle, there were police cars on the street and officers inside the house.

The children were taken to Temple University Hospital, where their mom, Pam, delivered the sad news - their father had been shot to death while responding to a call of a dispute at 13th Street and Sedgley Avenue in North Philadelphia.

Danny recalls the viewing and funeral Mass at St. Martin of Tours, with police vehicles lined along Cheltenham Avenue from the church to John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital.

As the long procession reached Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Danny remembers being told that the last car hadn't even left St. Martin's.

"I couldn't believe the honor and respect we were given," he said, adding that he's proud that his dad was a police officer.

Last week, it was again time for Officer Gleason's police family to honor him.

During an Oct. 28 ceremony at the headquarters of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, a plaque was dedicated in Gleason's memory.

The dedication was the 77th as part of a partnership between the FOP and lawyer Jimmy Binns. Gleason's ceremony was the 14th and final one for 2009. In all, 283 plaques will be dedicated to Philadelphia police officers who have died in the line of duty.

St. Martin of Tours and the 35th Ward Democratic Committee co-sponsored the plaque.

"This is very nice," said Barry Gleason, who was 8 when his father was murdered. "For me, there's never closure, but this gives me something to bookmark as a chapter in my life."

Gleason, 39, spent six years in the National Guard and was a 16-year department veteran who was assigned to the 25th Police District. At about 9:30 a.m. on June 5, 1986, he and partner Laurine Venable were riding in a wagon when they heard a call about a fight at 13th and Sedgley.

Nathan Long, an unemployed 38-year-old resident of Sedgley Avenue, was arguing with a hooker and a man about an alleged theft. He smashed one of the windows of the hooker's car with a baseball bat.

The two officers, who had worked together for only a month, seemingly calmed the tensions, but Long pulled out a handgun and shot Gleason multiple times in the face, arm and side. The officer was taken to nearby Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later.

"He turned a young family's world upside down," said Bob Ballentine, financial secretary of FOP Lodge 5.

Venable fired back at Long with her gun and that of her fallen partner. Long, shot twice in the arm, drove himself to Temple, where he was arrested. He was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after a jury rejected a prosecutor's request for the death penalty.