For the second time in less than a week members of the New York Police Department (NYPD) will gather Wednesday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to solemnly farewell another of their own who fell in the line of duty.
Officer Wilbert Mora’s funeral is set for mid-morning at the historic Roman Catholic cathedral. It is the same Fifth Avenue place of worship where his police partner, Jason Rivera, was eulogized and posthumously promoted to detective on Friday, as Breitbart News reported.
Both officers were shot Jan. 22 while responding to a call about a domestic argument in a Harlem apartment.
The shooting suspect, 47-year-old Lashawn McNeil, opened fire on Rivera and Mora as they approached him in a long hallway. McNeill was then shot twice by a third officer and died soon after.
New York’s Fifth Avenue was a “sea of blue” Friday as police gathered to honor fallen New York Police Officer Jason Rivera. https://t.co/ZxIjlfJtlN
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 29, 2022
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell called Mora “three times a hero.”
“For choosing a life of service. For sacrificing his life to protect others. For giving life even in death through organ donation,” she said in announcing his Jan. 25 death.
AP reports Mora, 27, joined the NYPD in October 2018, after graduating from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Fallen New York City Police Department Officer Wilbert Mora rescued citizens even after his death by donating his organs to those in need. (NYPD)
A student of Dominican descent who’d grown up in East Harlem, he was interested in improving relations between police and the neighborhoods they patrolled, according to one of his professors, Irina Zakirova.
Mora spent several days on life support in hospital after the incident so he could donate his organs, at his request. He was pronounced dead on Jan. 25.
Mora’s organ donations benefited five people, according to the organization that handled the gift.
Police officers salute as the procession of Officer Jason Rivera leaves St. Patrick’s Cathedral on January 28, 2022 in New York City. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty)
Members of the public watch from a second floor store window as NYPD officers salute during the procession of Officer Jason Rivera leaves St. Patrick’s Cathedral on January 28, 2022 in New York City. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Mora was given a hero’s farewell at his wake at St. Patrick’s on Tuesday evening.
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.
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