Died September 27, 2026
There are some names a city remembers with admiration, others with affection, and some with fear. Ollie Delaney will be remembered with all three. He was never someone who sought to be understood by everyone or worry about being liked. He was fiercely intelligent, stubborn, genuinely loving and, when necessary, utterly ruthless. He was a man who commanded respect, even from those who despised him.
I won’t dishonor his memory by pretending he was something he wasn’t.
Ollie was not a good man by conventional standards. He made enemies. He made mistakes. He was capable of cruelty, violence and decisions that many would never forgive. As a leader and my partner, he was a force to be reckoned with. Someone who stood his ground and refused to be intimidated. He built a reputation that was entirely his own. He won the respect of those who followed him. Ollie was a fucking force. No one can truthfully say otherwise.
But there was more to Ollie Delaney than the man this city learned to fear.
He had a brilliant mind. His passion was in chemistry, already working on his master’s despite his age. His thoughts, his ideas and his way of viewing the world would have taken him so far. No matter what anyone says, it’s a tragedy to lose a mind like his. There was so much he could have done and achieved. Those that loved him will never get to see what he could have accomplished if given more time.
Ollie was also a brother who carried the weight of his family upon his shoulders and adamantly looked after his younger siblings, despite that that responsibility shouldn’t have been his to bear. He could be so fucking difficult, but also a devoted and protective husband. And as a father, he was already showing a love and devotion that ran deeper than most would ever have imagined. Our son will never get to know him, but the sacrifice Ollie made for him proved what kind of father he was and could have been. His family will never fucking stop loving him.
And Ollie also loved.
Not always gently. Not always perfectly. But when Ollie Delaney loved someone, he loved with everything he had. I felt it even at our lowest moments. I felt it in his possessiveness. I felt it when he put his hand against my stomach just to feel our child kick. I felt it when he stayed even when leaving made more sense. And I saw it in the way he was with his siblings. With his nephews and nieces. With his friends. The loss of that love is so profound and can’t ever be replaced.
People will say the loss of Ollie’s life was justified. That the police had every right to rip him away from those that he loved and who loved him. But what they won’t say is that this happened because the HPD cruelly raided the memorial honoring the life of Ollie’s deceased brother. What they won’t say is that they ripped another brother away from the Delaney family on the same exact day they lost another brother previously. They will never admit that he actually died trying to protect his pregnant wife. They won’t say that the raid came without warning. No chances, just an attack that put his unborn son at risk. Ollie reacted because protectiveness was just his nature. Long before Hathian. Before the Yuugen. Before anything else that happened in his life, Ollie Delaney was always a protector. It’s how he lived and it’s how he died.
The city may choose to remember a dangerous man who turned against the police. I will remember a husband who saw the people he loved in danger and refused to stand aside. The result is that Ollie never got to hear his son’s first cry. He never got to hold him, look into his eyes or witness the beginning of a life he had so eagerly anticipated. This was a child he had wanted, planned for and loved long before his arrival. Of all the things taken from my husband that day, the chance to meet his son is perhaps the cruellest.
Ollie’s life was never simple, and his legacy will not be either. There are people who will remember him for the things he did, people who will never forgive him, and people who will feel safer knowing he is gone.
I understand that.
But there are also those of us who will remember his laughter, his determination, his loyalty and the extraordinary lengths he would go to for the people he called his own. We will remember the man beneath the reputation, the brother, the friend, the father and the husband. Death does not make a man innocent. Love does not make him perfect. But neither are a requirement for a life to be worthy of mourning.
Ollie Delaney was many things. He was feared. He was loved. He was deeply flawed, fiercely devoted and just unapologetically himself. He deserved the chance to grow older. To see the future he was building. To hold the son he would never meet. To see more of the world that the parts that were so cruel to him.
He deserved more than to become just another headline.
And those of us left behind will make sure he’s remembered for more.
So rest now, Ollie. You were never an easy partner to love, but you -were- loved. More than you will ever fucking know.
Forever Your Wife,
Hitori Delaney 幽玄
Everyone gets a memorial – Ed
