By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
TRENTON – Police in two states joined family and friends in mourning the tragic loss last week of a man who’d spent much of his life serving on the Trenton Police Department and also working for a police agency in Florida.
Mike Topping, 58, died Tuesday, Aug. 9, from injuries sustained days earlier in a motorcycle accident in Tennessee.
Details of the crash are unclear. Topping was wearing a helmet at the time.
Topping last posted on social media about midday Aug. 7 that he was north of Cincinnati and was looking to “relax for the rest of the day on 25W. Nice twisty road thru Kentucky and Tennessee.”
U.S. 25W winds through the mountains in those two states.
Topping, who lived in Delray Beach, Fla., was in Michigan for his Riverview Community High School Class of 1976 reunion last weekend. He also used the opportunity to drive his “beloved motorcycle” home, Delray Beach police said.
Topping had been with the records department of the Delray Beach Police Department since 2014.
Topping served in the U.S. Air Force as a law enforcement specialist from 1976 to 1980. He attended Central Missouri State University before beginning a career with the Trenton Police Department in 1986, where he reached the rank of lieutenant before retiring in 2010.
Post-retirement Topping had worked for the department as an IT specialist before relocating to Florida.
“Our department is shocked and saddened by the loss,” said Trenton Director of Police and Fire Services James Nardone. “He spent a life in public safety and service to the community.”
Nardone said Topping visited the station while in town for his class reunion. Topping had ridden his motorcycle to visit his former colleagues.
“He’d been riding for many years, was an experienced rider,” Nardone said. “It was such a tragic accident.”
Topping’s niece, Bridgette McClure, noted on social media that he had registered as an organ donor and “was able to save at least three lives, possibly more. He was an honorable man who even in death continued to give what he could to anyone in need.”
Topping also was an avid bowler, who had recorded several 300 games.
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected])