Marching two abreast, hundreds of cops from throughout Patrol Borough Brooklyn South poured into St. Anthanasius Church in Bensonhurst last week to remember the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice as they tried to make the borough a safer place.
As they stretched down the block waiting for their turn to enter the church, located at 61st Street and Bay Parkway, cops joined the families of deceased members to remember those who have fallen, as well as pray that no more join the list of the honored dead.
Added to the list of fallen cops this year is Police Officer Russel Timoshenko, who was gunned down during a traffic stop in Crown Heights last July.
His name joins an honor roll that includes Police Officer Dillon Stewart of the 70th Precinct, who was gunned down in 2005 during a car chase in Flatbush, Detectives Robert Parker and Patrick Rafferty, who were killed while responding to a domestic violence call in East Flatbush in 2003, Police Officer Anthony Mosimillo, who was shot by a suspect as he and his partner executed a search warrant in East Flatbush back in 1998 and Police Officer William Rivera, who died of injuries following a fall during a pursuit of a burglar in Park Slope in 2004.
A number of family members of fallen officers – which included the DeCarlo’s, whose father was shot and killed responding to a robbery in progress back in 1932 – were in attendance, said Chief Joseph Fox, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South.
To Fox, the attendance of Joseph DeCarlo, Jr., who was just four years old when his father died and who retired from a distinguished NYPD career as a Lieutenant in the 72nd Precinct in the 1980s – the same precinct his father was killed in – proves that the NYPD never forgets the families of those who sacrificed their lives for the city.
“When a tragedy happens, we tell that cop’s family that the NYPD will be there for them,” Fox said. “For a few hours, this mass gave our cops the opportunity to fulfill that promise.”
