NYPD Detective Wilbert Mora funeral
NEW YORK - A funeral service for NYPD Det. Wilbert Mora, 27, who was gunned down in Harlem last month alongside Det. Jason Rivera, 21, was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan Wednesday.
A sea of officers, law enforcement, dignitaries, family, friends and the public packed the cathedral to pay their final respects to the young detective who was killed after a gunman opened fire in a hallway of a Harlem apartment on Jan. 21, 2021.
Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell eulogized Mora.
"Today, we say goodbye, Wilbert," Adams said. "But we also thank him. The city thanks you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. And every day that I walk the streets of New York, the people of this city reminds me: support our police and let them know we appreciate them."
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"He absolutely loved this job, said Sewell. "With a kind and gentle soul, he cared deeply about his family and truly valued his friends."
Mora's funeral was taking place hours after an off-duty police officer was shot and wounded as he drove to work in Queens.
Rivera and Mora were the third and fourth officers shot in the city within 72 hours, and during a two-week stretch that also saw a woman pushed to her death in front of a subway train and an 11-month-old baby critically injured by a stray bullet. Crime has risen in the last few years from record lows but remains well below its early 1990s peak in the nation’s most populous city.
"Please stand with us again, and keep standing with us," the Police Benevolent Association posted on social media. "Together, we will show that our heroes did not die in vain."
Mora was taken off life support at NYU Langone Medical Center last week after donating five organs - his heart, liver, pancreas, and both kidneys, which saved five lives, according to LiveOnNY, an organ procurement organization.
Emotional widow of Det. Rivera recounts day of shooting
Mora entered the NYPD Police Academy in October 2018. He was assigned to the 32nd Precinct in Harlem in November 2019. Records show he'd made 33 arrests in his brief but impactful career in blue.
"He was a very humble young man. He was always happy, always eager to help any way he could," Officer Keith Hall said Tuesday. "I just grieve for his family. I’m grieving on my own, but I can only imagine what the family’s feeling."
Before last month, the NYPD had last lost an officer in the line of duty when Anastasios Tsakos was hit by a suspected drunken driver in May 2021 at the scene of an earlier wreck.
No on-duty NYPD officer had been fatally shot since September 2019, when Brian Mulkeen was hit by a fellow officer's fire during a struggle with an armed man.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.