TOLEDO, Ohio — Earl Francis Barry, the Toledo police officer who spent more than two decades teaching the city’s schoolchildren how to cross the street safely, what to do when a stranger approached, and how to respect a gun, died Oct. 24 at his home in Holland. He was 82 and had lived with Parkinson’s disease for years, according to his obituary published in The Blade on Nov. 1.

Barry, born Feb. 4, 1944 in Toledo, started working life as a Blade news carrier — a job his family said he remembered fondly. He later earned a criminal justice degree from the University of Toledo’s ComTech College and joined the Toledo Police Department in 1972.

After 12 years on road patrol, Barry moved in 1984 into the role that made him a fixture of Toledo childhoods: Safe-T-City instructor. For more than 20 years he taught kindergarteners through sixth-graders about gun safety, stranger danger, and how to cross streets and railroad tracks safely — lessons brought to life with Sparky, a remote-controlled car with blinking eyes and a flashing siren. He retired from the department in 2009 after 36 years.

A video tribute, “Family remembers Officer Earl Barry’s lasting legacy,” aired last week featuring family reflections on his impact.

Generations of Toledoans sat in that tiny mock city and learned, from Officer Barry, how to get home safe.

Featured image: an unidentified Toledo police officer, early 20th century — archival photo via the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library / DPLA, Wikimedia Commons. (Archival photo; not Officer Barry.)