Mourners gather at funeral for officer killed in line of duty
Five days after New York City police Officer Jonathan Diller was fatally shot in the line of duty, friends, family and colleagues gathered to remember him at a funeral Saturday morning at a Catholic church on Long Island.
The funeral at St. Rose of Lima Church in Massapequa, like the two-day wake that preceded it, drew large crowds of law enforcement officers mourning a life cut short in a killing that has become a political flashpoint.
Before Diller's hearse arrived, the area in front of the church on Merrick Road was flooded with thousands of police officers from New York City and throughout the region. Children held signs in support of police. An honor guard stood by as a lone bagpiper played at the church's entrance and police helicopters buzzed overhead.
When the hearse arrived, it was led by hundreds of police motorcycles and a pipe and drum corps laying down a slow, solemn drumbeat. Uniformed officers carried the coffin into the church, past the honor guard and Diller's family.
His wife, Stephanie, held their 1-yearold son, Ryan, dressed in a small dark suit. The boy wiggled in her arms and looked around curiously at the silent mourners as the bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.”
Diller's coffin was set down at the front of the church near the center aisle.
As mourners — many in New York Police Department uniforms — filed into the church, top leaders of the department could be seen sitting in the front rows.
The service began with a prayer at about 11:30 a.m.
New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, spoke at the event, addressing Diller's family and the broader Police Department. A vast majority of New York City residents, he said, “share our vision” of holding criminals accountable and reducing gun violence.
“I am you,” he told the assembled officers. “I know what it's like to don a bulletproof vest.”
Diller died doing what “we asked him to do,” said Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who spoke after Adams. Diller made dozens of arrests in his three years of service and “quickly became one of our best,” Caban said.
“His death will never be his legacy,” he said, shortly before announcing that Diller had been posthumously promoted to detective first grade, with a shield number matching his son's birthdate.