NYPD MEMORIAL SERVICES
Here in New York City, the SURVIVORS OF THE SHIELD, an
organization of the widows and orphans of members of the NYPD who have given the "last full measure of devotion" and the NEW YORK SHIELDS, the police fraternal organization, conducted a
memorial service on Monday, May 15, 2000. The site of the service was at the NYPD Police Memorial located in Battery Park City in Manhattan. The NYPD color guard stood by as the gentle breeze
unfurled the flags of the United States, the City of New York, and the Police Department.
Det. William Wagner & Det. Victoria d’Angelo New York Shields
Susan McCormack, President of the Survivors of the Shield opened the memorial service.
Mayor Rudolph Guiliani paid homage to the fallen heroes whose names are inscribed on the wall. He read some of the names of the officers.
Officials of the NYPD included Patrick E. Kelleher, First Deputy Commissioner, Joseph P. Dunne,
Chief of Department, Deputy Chief Michael Fox, Executive Officer, Patrol Borough Manhattan South.
The NYPD monument contains hundreds of names of police officers who died in the line of duty.
Each name was read aloud as the assembly sat in silence. The names of the cops echoed against the walls of the surrounding buildings of Battery Park City. As the litany of names was recited by
members of the Survivors of the Shield and the New York Shields, the violence of the past decades was brought home to those in attendance.
"But the souls of the just are in God's hand; no torment will touch them. In the eyes of the foolish
they seemed to be dead; their departure was reckoned as defeat, and their going from us as disaster. But they are at peace, for though in the sight of men they may suffer punishment, they have a sure
hope of immortality; and after a little chastisement they will receive great blessings, because God has tested them and found them worthy to be His. He put them to the proof like gold in a crucible, and
found them acceptable like an offering burnt whole on the altar."
The Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 3 from the Apocrypha
Copyright © 2000 Edward D. Reuss
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