Hundreds flock to funeral home to honor slain NYPD rookie Jason Rivera
Hundreds of Finest gathered at a Manhattan funeral home Sunday to pay their respects to slain rookie cop Jason Rivera and try to comfort his family, including his weeping mother in a wheelchair.
Photos of the emotional scene showed cops hugging and embracing one another as Rivera’s body was brought into the Riverdale Funeral Home in Inwood.
Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell were at the somber scene, which also included the murdered 22-year-old officer’s mother sobbing.
Rivera was fatally gunned down during a domestic call Friday in Harlem, and his police partner Wilbert Mora, 27, continued to fight for his life at Harlem Hospital on Sunday after the two were ambushed.
Mora was listed in extremely critical condition. Early Sunday afternoon, about 200 cops walked from Harlem’s 32nd Precinct, where the shot cops worked, to the hospital in a somber procession to hold vigil.
Mora was transferred to NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan early Sunday evening, said the Police Department without elaborating.
Mayor Adams, a former NYPD captain, issued a heartfelt video of himself Sunday to every NYPD cop’s work phone.
“I want you to know I am here for you,” he said. “I know what it feels like to lose a friend and a colleague, a fellow officer.”
The mayor talked about the loss of pal Robert Venable, a transit cop who was killed in 1987.
“I remember how my mother feared for my safety after hearing the news he was killed in the line of duty,” Adams said of Venable.
“I know how much your family fears for your life and how it feels to have your family fear for your safety,” he told the officers.
“Don’t listen to the criticism,” he said of anti-police sentiment. “You are loved and appreciated by your fellow citizens.”
Rivera had just joined the force 14 months ago.
“He was a humble person, I always saw him at church,” Luisa Jimenez, 52, who was outside the funeral home, said in Spanish. “He was very hard-working, very sweet, a family person, always with his family, and he was very close to his Catholic faith.”
Rita de Lantingua de Luna, 62, who knew Rivera from Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, described the slain cop as “a guy like no other.
“He adored his mother. Adored his family,” she said in Spanish. “He always wanted to be a police officer, he always loved it, and he devoted himself fully to it.”
The city needs to take action on gun violence, the family friend said.
“What’s happening now here, all these guns in the street, I hope the city’s government does something. Because it’s wrong that so many innocent people are dying this way. Something has to be done. It’s possible, take the guns off the street,” she said.
A wake will be held for the Washington Heights native from 1 to 8 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Jan. 27, followed by funeral services at 9 a.m. the next day.
Members of the public had already raised more than $135,000 for the families of Rivera and Mora.
