NEW YORK (AP) — Mourners packed a New York mosque on Thursday to honor a Bangladesh-born police officer who embraced the job of protecting his adopted city and gave his life for it when a gunman opened fire in an office building this week.
Officer Didarul Islam “did believe in the American dream, not as something handed down but as something built with your own hands,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told Islam’s family and friends as his fellow officers lined up rows deep outside the Bronx house of worship.
Dignitaries and members of the New York’s thriving Bangladeshi community also paid tribute to the fallen officer during a memorial that emphasized the importance he placed on his family, background and service to the city.
A married father of two with a third child on the way, the 36-year-old was working a New York Police Department-approved private security detail, in uniform, when he and three other people were killed Monday at the Manhattan skyscraper that houses the NFL’s headquarters and other corporate offices.
“To our family, he was our world. To the city, he was a proud NYPD officer who served with compassion and integrity. He lived to help others,” Islam’s widow said in a statement that a relative read on her behalf at the service at the Parkchester Jame Masjid mosque.
With officers stationed on surrounding rooftops for security, fire trucks used their ladders to hold a huge American flag over a nearby street. A flatbed truck carried a digital billboard showing photos of Islam and a commemorative message from his union.
White House sends condolencesAfter coming to the United States, Islam began building a career in the nation’s largest police force. He described policing as “a blanket of the community, there to provide comfort and care,” the police commissioner said.
Islam served as a school safety agent before becoming a patrol officer less than four years ago, and he was promoted posthumously Thursday to detective.
“He could have gone into any other occupation he wanted, but he wanted to put on that uniform, and he wanted to protect fellow New Yorkers. And he wanted to let us know that he believed in what this city and what this country stood for,” Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, told the gathering. “That’s the greatest symbol of what we know we are as a country.”
In Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt began her daily briefing by expressing President Donald Trump’s condolences to Islam’s family, saying he “made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of his fellow New Yorkers.”
A ‘humble, steady, and reliable’ officerLike others who spoke, Imam Zakir Ahmed highlighted the officer’s immigrant background and Muslim faith. But said Islam “lived at a time when people like him are too often feared, vilified and made to feel like outsiders.”
“It’s time for New York and America to give back — to see us, to hear us, to protect our dignity, the way Officer Islam protected yours,” Ahmed said.
The eldest of several siblings, Islam supported his parents in Bangladesh, as well as his wife and two young sons in the Bronx, the imam said. The police commissioner said Islam worked a long day at a parade Sunday, then picked up private security hours Monday at the office building.
Deputy Inspector Muhammad Ashraf, the commander of the busy Bronx precinct where Islam worked, said he was a “humble, steady and reliable” officer.
“He knew what it meant to protect the place that gave him a new beginning, and in return, he gave everything back,” Ashraf said at Thursday’s service.
After the service, the streets filled with people, mostly men, kneeling in prayer. Some Muslim officers took part, as colleagues stood in formation behind them and looked on.
Later, officers saluted as Islam’s casket, draped in U.S. and NYPD flags, was brought to a hearse for burial at a cemetery in Totowa, New Jersey.
Other shooting victims laid to restMourners also gathered Thursday for the funeral of investment firm executive Wesley LePatner, 43, a married mother of two who was shot in the building’s lobby.
“There’s a huge gaping Mount Everest-size hole in my life right now,” her husband, Evan LePatner, said during his eulogy at Central Synagogue in Manhattan.
More than 500 people attended the funeral, the New York Post reported. LePatner was one of Blackstone’s top executives, specializing in real estate.
Another victim, real estate firm worker Julia Hyman, 27, was mourned at an emotional service Wednesday at the same synagogue located just blocks from where the shooting happened.
Funeral arrangements for the fourth shooting victim, security guard Aland Etienne, have not yet been finalized.
Governor praises officer for saving livesPolice identified the gunman as Shane Tamura, a 27-year old former high school football player who most recently worked in a Las Vegas casino’s surveillance department. Authorities say he believed he had a brain disease linked to contact sports and accused the NFL of hiding the dangers of playing football.
On Thursday, police said they found more than 800 rounds of ammunition in Tamura’s car and had recovered 47 shell casings in the building’s lobby and the office floor where Hyman was killed.
Police said Tamura had a history of mental illness, but they haven’t elaborated other than to say they found psychiatric medication prescribed to him at his residence in Las Vegas.
Officials said he was heading for the NFL’s office but took the wrong elevator and went by mistake to another floor. The gunfire seriously injured an NFL employee in the lobby.
Islam “saved lives. He was out front,” Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said at Thursday’s service. “Others may be alive today because he was the barrier.”
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Associated Press reporters Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.