Kevin Lee, the cop who collapsed last Friday after pursuing a teenage shoplifting suspect, “died doing what he loved, what he was born to do,” Mayor Bloomberg told mourners who filled a Brooklyn church yesterday.
Lee, 31, always wanted to be one of New York’s Finest, the mayor noted.
As a boy, Bloomberg said, Lee loved being photographed with cops.
As a young man, dreaming of joining the NYPD, he served as an auxiliary cop on Staten Island.
And then, finally, as an officer, his sharp eyes and sixth sense on the street earned the respect of his brother officers and the nickname “The Crow.”
“His pride in the shield was surpassed by only one other great love – his family,” Bloomberg told those assembled at St. Athanasius Catholic Church in Bensonhurst.
Then, turning to Lee’s widow, Erica, the mayor said, “Your husband gave his life so the rest of us could live ours safely and peacefully.”
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly recalled how Lee “quickly become to go-to-guy of the command” as a member of the Manhattan North grand-larceny task force.
“He had an uncanny ability to anticipate when something wasn’t quite right in his surroundings,” Kelly said, adding that during Lee’s 10 years with the NYPD he made 200 arrests and received a half-dozen commendations.
“Kevin Lee was everything we could ask for in a police officer – and much more,” the commissioner said.
Lee’s widow read a letter she had written to her husband, telling him in a trembling voice, “I never thought this type of love existed till I met you.”
Sobs filled the church as she struggled through her final words: “. . . my heart will always hurt the way it hurts now. I will carry this emptiness with me forever. I will never be whole again.”
As she returned to her seat, alongside her 6-year-old son, Adam, she placed her hands to her lips and then gently touched Lee’s coffin, draped in a white funeral veil decorated with a red cross.
Lee’s mother, Cathy Lee, shared a letter she had written to her only son. It was read by Bart Rodden, one of his close friends.
In it, she recalled how, when the family was struggling financially, her pint-sized son was told he could pick out one toy – and how he thoughtfully chose one that cost only 99 cents.
“Our most proud time was when Kevin graduated from the Police Academy in 1995,” she wrote. “He had fulfilled his dream.”
She said she and her husband, Gil, “will miss Kevin with a hurt we cannot describe. A piece of our heart will always be missing until we can be together again.”