For the first time, Toledo police Lt. Randy Pepitone is wishing he could go a little slower.

The longtime lawman is known for always being in the right place at the right time — or wrong place at the wrong time if you’re a criminal or a frightened 92-year-old woman (more on her later). If the lieutenant isn’t on-scene before there’s a scene to speak of, you can pretty much guarantee he will be there quickly. Faster than you, let’s just say.

He’s a guy who doesn’t like to miss out on the action — the kind of police officer colleagues describe as “legendary.” An officer who, after 35 years on the job, still gets pumped up and giddy at the idea of catching someone in a stolen car.

“It’s unbelievable, his work ethic this late in his career. I couldn’t go out and match him, and I’m 10 years younger,” said police Capt. Mike Troendle, who rode with Lieutenant Pepitone for his final shift Saturday into Sunday. “The enthusiasm is just unmatched. ... I’d like to clone it. He’s a one-of-a kind.”

So why the reluctant slowdown for the 56-year-old crime suppression unit lieutenant? Because it’s time.

“I can’t believe this is it,” he said, dropping his head into his hands on New Year’s Eve, lamenting his retirement today.

Added Sgt. Dan Raab of the Special Weapons and Tactics unit: “If I had a career to do over, I would do it just the way he did. You always want to think that you make a difference, and when you leave here you’re going to be remembered, and that you did things the right way and got things accomplished. Basically, that’s Randy.”

Police work always intrigued Lieutenant Pepitone. As a child at family functions, he looked up to an older cousin, a police officer who showed up in uniform, driving a shiny patrol car. “That’s what I want,” a younger Randy Pepitone would say.

On the road, the lieutenant isn’t dispatched to specific calls. He picks up ones he’s near or emergency calls where he can help — especially if the area is known for gang activity. He patrols neighborhoods, mostly the central city where he’s worked for most of his career.

He says he could navigate those streets blindfolded. He knows which house belongs to which bad guy, where the bad guys’ girlfriends live, and the cars they drive.

“Knowledge gives you confidence,” Lieutenant Pepitone said.

At a New Year’s Eve pep talk with gang and SWAT officers, before one of the busiest nights of the year unfolds, the lieutenant reminded everyone to look for people shooting guns into the air or ground. It’s a crime: a misdemeanor, but a crime nonetheless, and one that might seem harmless to some but can have dire consequences.

Just after midnight, when guns were being fired from every possible direction, and while the lieutenant is helping other officers look for a tossed handgun outside a motorcycle club at Brown Avenue and Belmont Street, a SWAT officer in the north end yelled into his radio that he and his partner were being shot at.

“Our vehicle was hit,” the officer said. “My heart’s going a little, but we’re OK.”

The car, it turned out, was hit by celebratory gunfire.

That’s how New Year’s Eve goes. Officers run call to call. They radio in about shots fired, which come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They’re almost impossible to pinpoint.

Unless you’re lucky.

Gang officers Thomas Reinhart and Jason Picking watched a man on a Fernwood Avenue porch get ready to pop off rounds from a handgun — he had already emptied at least one magazine — when they let their presence be known. From that house, the officers collected 11 guns.

That’s the kind of stuff Lieutenant Pepitone has loved his entire career, and why he’s only missed three New Year’s shifts in his career.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “I can’t believe I’ve been here for 31½ years.”

Before being hired as a Toledo police officer in 1983, Lieutenant Pepitone worked for two years apiece at the Erie County Sheriff’s Office and the Sandusky Police Department.

His 31 years in Toledo have been marked by wild times. He led the gang unit during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when gangs were more brazen and their crimes bloodier.

In 1988 he was in an alleyway shootout, and in 1994 he was shot at again. He escaped each time without injury.

July 5, 2012, was a different story.

From her home on Indiana Avenue, 92-year-old Annie Huddleston called 911. Someone, she told dispatchers, was breaking into her home.

Lieutenant Pepitone, first on scene, checked the perimeter and found nothing. With no response at the door and concerned that something might have happened to Ms. Huddleston, he pried at the locked front door.

As he was opening the door, Ms. Huddleston steadied in her hand her late husband’s .357 Magnum revolver and pulled the trigger. The bullet blew through a wall and hit Lieutenant Pepitone on the side of his head.

After a mandated one-day leave to recover, Lieutenant Pepitone was back at work. Later, the lieutenant went to check on Ms. Huddleston.

“She just latched on to me,” the lieutenant said. “I could tell she was just saying, ‘Thank God, thank God.’ ”

Ms. Huddleston died that October.

When you’ve been on the job as long as Lieutenant Pepitone has, it can be hard to look away. His daughter, Maria, once did a ride-along with Sergeant Raab on a night the lieutenant was off.

“He was worried sick that he wasn’t there to protect her,” the sergeant said.

A weapons call came over the radio, but the sergeant couldn’t remember exactly where the street was, so he asked other crews for help.

“A voice came over and said exactly where the street was,” the sergeant said. “His daughter looked at me and said, ‘Is that my dad?’ ”

The constant drive to do well at work inspired his son, Dominic Pepitone, 23, to go into law enforcement. He’s now a Washington Township officer, and carries his dad’s handcuffs from the late 1970s, when Lieutenant Pepitone’s career was just starting in Erie County.

“Dad got the bad guys. That’s all I knew growing up and I wanted to be like dad,” Officer Pepitone said. “I think it’s just in his blood to be in law enforcement. I don’t think he was out to make a name for himself, he wasn’t in it for glory.

“He just wanted to be the best at what he was doing.”

Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.

First Published January 5, 2015, 5:00 a.m.