Shield of honor
THE NYPD has retired the shield number of Detective Steven McDonald, the officer who touched thousands of lives after a robber’s bullet fired in Central Park left him a paraplegic in 1986.
Doctors gave McDonald roughly five years to live, but the paralyzed cop miraculously survived for the next three decades, living to become a global voice for peace and forgiveness. He ultimately died of complications from his gunshot wounds in 2017.
Police Commissioner James O’Neill and Mayor de Blasio presented the 59-year-old cop’s shield number — 15231 — to his widow during a Medal Day ceremony at police headquarters Wednesday.
“This number meant a lot to us, knowing that we have it back,” McDonald’s widow, Patti Ann McDonald, said after the ceremony. “I’m going to put it in a special place. I’m going to have it framed.”
The shield number was randomly assigned to Police Officer Brendan McNamara when he entered the Police Academy in 2015. McDonald got a new number when he was promoted to detective.
When told of his shield number’s history, he happily agreed to hand it over.
“I was shocked, I guess that was the best way to put it,” McNamara, 28, said. “I said, ‘Of course, it would be an honor to give the number to the family.’”
McDonald’s son, Sgt. Conor McDonald, had actually met McNamara at the 105th Precinct in Queens Village. The two had talked a few times, but Conor admits that he never knew the legacy of the young cop’s shield.
“I never looked at his shield,” Conor said, tears welling up in his eyes as he thought about how much it had meant to his father. “For a cop to give up his shield . . . I know how important your first shield is. For him to give up his shield in his honor . . . that means the world to me.”
In return, the department let McNamara have his choice of numbers for his new shield. He picked 1513, a merging of his and his fiancée’s birthdays, he said.
Patti Ann McDonald said that by chance she met McNamara’s parents on the boardwalk in Long Beach, L.I. They had told her that their son is a survivor like her husband. A few years ago he was diagnosed — and beat — a dangerous form of skin cancer.
“(McNamara) had obstacles in his life that he overcame, and (with) everything Steven overcame, I thought he was the right person to have Steven’s badge number,” she said.
During the annual Medal Day ceremony, Mayor de Blasio and the department posthumously honored more than two dozen cops, including Detective Miosotis Familia — who was executed by a career criminal in the Bronx last year.
Twenty-four officers died of 9/11-related cancer directly linked to rescue and recovery operations at Ground Zero, officials said.
More than 40 other officers were also saluted for surviving encounters with armed suspects — including three cops who faced down a gun-toting ex-con in the stairwell of a Bronx housing project on Feb. 4, 2016.
The officers were conducting a floor-by-floor patrol of the Melrose Houses when they found three men in a stairwell, including gunman Malik Chavis.
Chavis was trying to rob two men when the cops — Detective Diara Cruz, Detective Patrick Espeut and Officer Philip Pena — intervened.
Chavis ran off, then spun around and opened fire, hitting Cruz in the stomach and in a rear panel of her bullet-resistant vest. Espeut was shot in the nose and a bullet grazed his cheek, but he and Pena returned fire. Chavis ran into a seventh-floor apartment and killed himself.
All three cops will receive the Police Combat Cross.
Pena’s father, Detective Francisco Pena, received a Combat Cross in 2008 when he worked for the Bronx Narcotics Bureau, officials said.
Other award recipients included Sgt. Donald Coniff, who was posthumously given the NYPD’s Purple Shield after dying in 2015 of injuries he sustained in 1998 when his vehicle was hit by a drunken driver as he drove to his assignment.
O’Neill said that Medal Day ceremonies are held each year to “recognize those whose remarkable courage, instinct and skill carried them through situations that would have panicked most other people,” O’Neill said.
“But they’re not ‘most other people,’ they are among the finest law enforcement officers in the world.” SIX FIREFIGHTERS who ran to assist victims injured by a truckramming terrorist on West St. were among those honored for their bravery by the Fire Department on Wednesday. “The members of the FDNY responded to acts of terrorism with acts of heroism,” Mayor de Blasio told those gathered for the department’s annual Medal Day ceremony at City Hall. The Squad 18 firefighters, based in a West Village firehouse, were one of the first rescue groups to arrive at the chaotic scene in lower Manhattan last Oct. 31. Eight people died in the terror attack. “It was a violent scene, and that unfortunately was disturbing to see,” recalled FDNY Lt. Adrienne Walsh. On Wednesday, she was the first female fire officer to receive the Thomas R. Elsasser Memorial Medal. All told, the FDNY cited 67 firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, fire marshals and officers for their dedication to lifesaving work. put together showcases across the clubs at a time when Kent Ave. was full of garbage, and probably AEG and Live Nation had never even heard of Brooklyn,” said Stedman, CEO of Northside Media Group, which publishes Brooklyn Magazine.
This year’s big draw is an East River boat cruise on Sunday with rockers Parquet Courts and Ethiopian jazz artist Hailu Mergia onboard. The show will close the festival after a Bedford Ave. block party.
Phair (photo above) will perform the demos that led to her iconic 1993 “Exile in Guyville” album on Thursday night at the intimate new Williamsburg venue National Sawdust.
Tickets for Northside’s individual club shows are available through venues for $10-$30, though many have already sold out.
Badges that grant access to either the tech innovation conference ($599), all the performances ($75, subject to availability) or both ($649) can be purchased at northsidefestival.com.