Tears for ‘twerk’ cop
Vid fame from LGBT parade
He was a “cop’s cop,” who had an uncanny knack for diffusing tense situations.
He once saved a child from choking to death.
And Officer Michael Hance also sure knew how to have fun — famously getting his groove on, in uniform, with a reveler at the 2015 LGBT pride parade.
Hance, 44, died on March 12 from 9/11-related cancer. His funeral was held Saturday at St. Martin of Tours RC Church in his hometown of Bethpage, LI.
“I will confess as a Catholic priest, I did not know a lot about twerking,” Father Patrick Woods told more than 500 mourners.
But when the holy man saw the YouTube clip of Hance’s spontaneous boogie at the parade — now viewed more than 8 million times — the priest recognized the importance of the moment.
“For me it was a powerful message that we are all brothers and sisters to one another,” Woods said. “The ‘Twerk Cop,’ as the papers nicknamed him, showed a man whose heart was open to all people and a man who loves life and who could dance in the streets of New York with a sense of joy.”
The moment was also seen as a sign of the changed relationship between the NYPD and the LGBT community, all the more so because Hance was heterosexual.
The 17-year NYPD veteran, who most recently worked out of the 111th Precinct in Bayside, Queens, learned in November he had brain cancer, which quickly spread through his body.
He spent more than 160 hours at Ground Zero searching for victims’ remains.
Inspector Ronald Leyson, Hance’s commanding officer from 2010-12, said when he saw the video from the parade, he wasn’t surprised it was Hance.
“It was a good thing,” Leyson said. “It did a lot to help show the human side of the police.”
Family members said the only thing Hance loved more than being a cop was spending time with his two daughters, Kaitlyn, 12, and Jenna, 10, who wore her father’s uniform hat to the funeral.