Sad cadet farewell
HUNDREDS of relatives and NYPD officers squeezed into a Long Island church Friday to bid farewell to a promising police cadet who died of leukemia.
Jake Siciliano, 23, died Tuesday less than a month after he was diagnosed with the aggressive form of cancer.
The aspiring cop was just three months into his NYPD training and had proposed to his girlfriend Oct. 1.
“Jake didn't give up his life. The fact is, he was willing to,” the Rev. Tom Moriarty told the mourners packed into the St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Hewlett.
“As a police officer, he was willing to. This church is packed with people who are willing to, and we can’t forget that.”
After prayer and communion, a group of police officers carried Siciliano’s casket, draped in a green and white-striped NYPD flag, out of the church as his family and friends followed closely behind.
Hundreds of officers stood in silence outside as Siciliano’s family helped to lift his casket into the back of a waiting hearse.
The hearse then drove off, escorted by a police motorcade, to the sorrowful soundtrack of bagpipes and drums.
Siciliano graduated Lynbrook High School in 2012 and played lacrosse at Nassau Community College before pursuing his dream to become a New York City cop.
“He was a great kid. He had it figured out,” said his aunt Linda Dunn, 51. “Anything he wanted to do, he made it happen for himself.”
Dunn said Siciliano’s family was stunned by the pace at which the leukemia ravaged his body.
“Three weeks — how does that happen?” she said.
“One day he’s fine and the next he’s in the hospital. Never thought that this would happen.”
Siciliano’s fiancée, Ashlee Ragusano, wrote a touching tribute on the day before his funeral.
“God picked the most incredible NYPD Officer to lead the way & Heaven has now gained the purest of all angels,” she wrote on her Facebook page.