Opinion | New York Police Officers Remember Jason Rivera – The New York Times

My brother Kevin, then in second grade, was traumatized by my mom s terror as she stood in the kitchen, frozen, before she got word that my dad was OK. Your father is in a shooting, she told Kevin.

I thought about this listening to Dominique Luzuriaga, Officer Rivera s widow, give her eulogy through sobs.

You know, it s hard being a cop s wife sometimes, she said. They had a fight the day he died. She didn t want him to be on the phone for work so much. But he was excited to be a police officer, so excited that on his first day at the station in Harlem, he double parked in front and caused a traffic jam.

He epitomized what we want in an officer full of compassion and joy, with an infectious smile. His older brother, Jeffrey, remembered Tata, as his family called him, stripping down to his tighty-whities as a child to do Latin dances.

Rivera was the mirror opposite of the brutal Derek Chauvin. As Jeffrey recalled, My brother was afraid of heights, he was afraid of rats, he was afraid of dogs. But he was not afraid to die to wear that uniform.

Officer Rivera and his 27-year-old partner, Wilbert Mora, died answering a 911 call from a mother in Harlem who said her son had verbally threatened her. They walked down a hall in the apartment and the son jumped out and opened fire, fatally wounding both officers.

via www.nytimes.com

Maureen Dowd.