There were quite a few police deaths over my years at Investigations and the NYPD.  Two officers were executed in their vehicle – a Hispanic officer who aspired to be a chaplain and an Asian officer who left behind a young wife.  At their funerals, the officers in attendance turned their backs on Mayor DiBlasio.

That happened my first year.  I didn’t really know what to think.  But now, I see it was not only warranted, but also should be applauded.

There was another officer executed a few years later, a Hispanic one and a mother of several children.  When I watched the funeral service, I was so disgusted with DiBlasio.  Instead of genuine empathy or sorrow, his self-serving speech was to score political points.  He thought that by repeatedly enunciating her name in the most perfect Spanish, it would resonate.  The same mayor who would later “defund” the police (he didn’t even do this, just did some accounting tricks to make it look like he was).

In addition to these tragic murders, there were an unusually high number of officer suicides.  There was actually an investigation of the Department’s counseling services and that Deputy Commissioner I wrote about would make jokes.  Yup, jokes about life and death.  He even included one in a flippant way in the Department’s official response.

Any and all suicides are tragic, but there was one that stood out to me.  A Chief kills himself on the day he hands in his retirement papers.  He had a sizable pension waiting for him, but no family.  I’ve thought long and hard about this incident.  It speaks a lot to the concepts of belonging and purpose.

That Asian officer – medical personnel manage to harvest his sperm and his wife eventually gave birth to a daughter.  You take the wins where and when you can get them.