Gov fires back in eulogy
Gov. Cuomo likened Carey Gabay, his murdered aide, to Christ in his eulogy Saturday — and called for earthly action in response.
“I never asked Pope Francis why Carey Gabay was taken, but then again, over the past two days, I heard the pope repeatedly speak about a young man who grew up in poverty and raised himself up and lived a life of love and selflessness,” Cuomo said. “A life too that was ended early.”
Referring to the tactics of conservatives in the US Congress, Cuomo said that guncontrol advocates “should . . . threaten to shut down the government if they don’t get a real guncontrol law to stop the killing of the innocent.”
Gabay, 43, died on Sept. 16, nine days after getting caught in crossfire and shot in the head at an earlymorning J’Ouvert celebration in Brooklyn.
The 100 mourners at the private service Saturday in Emmanuel Baptist Church in Fort Greene included Mayor de Blasio, Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Family members hugged and wept on the sidewalk as the pine coffin was placed in the hearse after the funeral, as Cuomo embraced Gabay’s distraught brother Aaron McNaughton.
Gabay, a Harvardeducated lawyer who grew up in public housing, was first deputy counsel for Empire State Development.
“This was an extraordinary, extraordinary human being,” Cuomo said outside. “He could have been making a million dollars at any law firm. Instead he is in public service.”