NYPD honors finest among city’s Finest
They have medals already, all of them, medals with numbers on them, badges, if you will, that they pin beside their hearts.
But they need something more, especially in these trying times, when a police officer is literally dragged down the street, and targets are figuratively painted on their backs.
“We ask a lot of our officers,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. “When things go wrong, we ask you to make it right. When the situation has gone too far, we ask you to bring it back. When someone is in harm’s way or a neighborhood is oppressed by crime . ... When you wear that shield and do your job there is none better. And, today we add medals to some of those shields.”
Sewell and Mayor Adams, a former police captain, honored the finest of Finest on Tuesday at the department’s annual medal day, where cops are recognized for courage and commitment in the service of the city.
Even in the midst of a gun violence epidemic and random acts of subway mayhem, city cops were saluted for being the last line of defense, and for keeping the city safe.
“There are days we feel like we are all alone,” Adams told the crowd at the Police Academy in Queens. “Why are we doing this? We’re doing it because we believe in it. We’re doing it because we know that what stands between safety and those who want to destroy our city, are the heroes we are acknowledging today and the heroes that are performing this job.”
Adams and Sewell draped medals around the necks of brave officers.
That included Detective Dalsh Veve, who suffered a brain injury in 2017 when a teenage driver dragged him for three blocks after approached a car in East Flatbush. The 40-year-old continues to receive roundthe-clock care.
“This means a lot to Dalsh,” said the detective’s wife, Esther Veve. “This wasn’t just a job. This was his passion. So for him to have witnessed this day, for me to be by his side and my daughter to witness it, I think it was definitely an achievement in his career.”.