Funeral Held for Second Slain NYPD Officer
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Kevin Hagen/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Thousands of mourners gathered Sunday at a funeral home in New York City to remember Wenjian Liu, one of two city police officers killed in a shooting last month.
Undaunted by a sheet of rain, a steady stream of uniformed officers marched past the funeral home to pay their respects to Liu’s weeping family, including his widow, who married him a few months ago.
Liu served as a policeman for seven years before he and fellow officer Rafael Ramos were shot while sitting in their parked squad car. A funeral for Ramos was held last weekend.
Following a private Chinese ceremony led by Buddhist monks at Aievoli Funeral Home, dignitaries memorialized Liu, 32, in a traditional police ceremony.
“These are our most difficult days. They are days where we struggle to define meaning from tragedy,” FBI Director James Comey said. “Our obligation is to make something good come from tragedy so that evil is not allowed to hold the field, so that evil is not allowed to win the day. Our obligation is to try to do good to honor this man.”
Liu’s death “is a reminder of what is done by good people to keep others safe and to hold our society together, and just how great the dangers are,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who kept his eyes down through much of his speech. “We lost in Detective Liu and Detective Ramos the very best of us, everything that we as New Yorkers aspire to be.
“New York City stands a little taller today because he walked among us,” de Blasio added. “With hearts that are doubly heavy from the loss of Detective Liu and Detective Ramos, let us rededicate ourselves to those great New York traditions of mutual understanding and living in harmony. Let us move forward by strengthening the bonds that unite us. And let us work together to obtain peace.”
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