SEAFORD, N.Y. — Thousands of police officers from around the country converged under heavy security Friday for the funeral of a New York City police officer who was killed on patrol, showing solidarity at a time when police face deep scrutiny.
Busloads of officers arrived from as far as California, Louisiana, and Chicago to line the streets on Long Island outside Officer Brian Moore’s funeral. Snipers watched from the roof of a nearby elementary school and stood atop a police van while a hearse carried Moore’s body from a funeral home to the Roman Catholic church. A police helicopter hovered in the three-mile no-fly zone authorities imposed overhead.
“Right now, it’s a tough time in law enforcement,” said Detective Omar Daza-Quiroz, 33, who traveled to the funeral from Oakland, California. “Sometimes people forget we are human and that we have lives.”
The 25-year-old died Moore Monday, two days after he was shot in Queens. He and his partner were in street clothes in an unmarked car and were stopping a man suspected of carrying a handgun when the suspect shot him in the head.
“If you came here to hear a homily today that would ease your pain, I’m not your man,” Monsignor Robert Romano, a New York Police Department chaplain, told the mourners. But, he added, “we are here today united as a family — a family of blood, a family of blue, and the American family.”
Moore’s death came amid a national debate about policing, race and deadly force following the recent killings of unarmed black men by officers in New York; Ferguson, Missouri; North Charleston, South Carolina, and elsewhere.
But last weekend’s shooting also came only five months after two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were killed in their patrol car, ambushed by a man who had posted online about killing police in revenge for the chokehold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island.
Liu’s relatives were among mourners who arrived early for Moore’s funeral. So was city Detective Steven McDonald, who was shot and paralyzed in July 1986 and became an international voice for peace.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo was among the mourners attending the officer’s wake on Thursday. Mayor Bill de Blasio was at Friday’s funeral.
At Ramos’ and Liu’s funerals, hundreds of officers turned their backs to the mayor in a searing sign of disrespect. Police union leaders had said de Blasio had helped foster an anti-NYPD sentiment by allowing protesters to march through the city’s streets after a grand jury decided not to indict an officer in Garner’s death.
An uneasy truce between de Blasio and the police eventually settled in after some police union infighting, a public backlash to a NYPD job slowdown and a series of City Hall investments in the police department. There has been no similar sign of tensions in the wake of Moore’s death:
De Blasio’s “words are measured and careful to know that there’s support, and that’s important,” said Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch, who once said de Blasio had “blood on his hands” after Liu’s and Ramos’ deaths.
Moore had been on the force for only a handful of years, but he had already built up a record of more than 150 arrests and had earned meritorious service medals. He was the son, nephew and cousin of New York Police Department officers.
Moore and his family are “truly blue bloods,” the union chief said.
The young officer “was the man who walked in the room and made you laugh,” he said, but on the street, “he was serious about his work.”
The suspect in Moore’s killing, Demetrius Blackwell, faces charges including murder, attempted murder and other crimes. He is being held without bail and has not entered a plea. His attorney has denied the charges.
