Saddest job in NYPD

There’s no joy in parts of NYPD Inspector Clint McPherson’s new job — but there is satisfaction.

McPherson is three weeks in as the new head of the NYPD’s Family Assistance Section, in which he’ll be have to escort widows or mothers from police officers’ funerals.

He says he’s ready. “It’s not a job with a lot of happiness, but it’s an important job — and that’s the key,” he said. “This job is very important.”

McPherson, 51, got a sense of the Family Assistance Section’s role when he was asked in 2015 to lead a delegation of cops to his native Guyana to help plan the burial of another cop from that country, NYPD Officer Randolph Holder, who was shot in East Harlem.

“In my 28 years on the job that’s probably one of the best experiences I had,” McPherson said. “Doing that for the family, for the depart

NYPD Inspector Clint McPherson (far right) in his native Guyana in 2015, when he led delegation to help plan burial of another Guyanese Finest, Randolph Holder. ment — it’s just a certain pride you have after doing something like that.”

Holder’s dad, retired cop Randolph Holder, now 66, remembers being impressed with how McPherson was “cool, very focused, calm.”

“When we got there, he took over,” Holder said. “He was amazing.”

McPherson’s work apparently caught the eye of NYPD brass.

Holder’s place of honor at NYPD memorial in Battery Park City (above) . McPherson (below), who won praise from Holder’s dad for handling of his slain son’s funeral, is new head of the unit that deals with such grim duties.

When Deputy Chief Thomas Burns eecently retired as heead of the unit, they taapped McPherson to reeplace him.

The section has abbout 20 officers and ddealsl most obviously with families of cops killed in the line of duty.

McPherson, as the commanding officer, will meet grieving relatives at hospitals and plan funerals.

For years beyond that, the section acts as a second family and provides whatever support is needed, particularly if the fallen officer has left behind small children.

The section also works with relatives of cops who take their own life or die from illness, such as the nearly 250 who have succumbed to cancers linked to their work at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 attacks.

McPherson believes the keys to doing the job well are si imple.

“You have to be able to liste en, have empathy for people,” he said. “And you’ve got to o be honest with people and nice n to people.”

The inspector has already dealt with two grieving famil lies following the death of one cop to a heart attack and another to an aneurysm.

Later this month, he’ll help unveil a plaque for Offi

er Brian Mulkeen, killed last year in a Bronx friendly fire in ncident.

His wish, he said, is that his phone never rings with any bad news.

“I hope to be out of business,” he said. “No calls.”