It was on March 30, just before Easter, that newly widowed Stephanie Diller, clutching her one-year-old son Ryan, emerged from the funeral service at a church in Massapequa Park for her husband, New York City police officer Jonathan Diller. Five days earlier, the 31-year-old officer had been shot below his protective vest while investigating an illegally parked car in Far Rockway, Queens. The car’s occupants, two career criminals, appeared to be waiting to commit a robbery. 

Diller was surrounded by family and by Sergeants Benevolent Association president Vincent Vallelong, who warned anti-cop politicians to stay away from the funeral, specifically naming City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “They should . . . not pretend they are grieving. They have caused enough heartbreak and destruction.”

The Diller shooting produced feelings of deja vu. In January 2022, Dominique Luzuriaga, the young widow of NYPD officer Jason Rivera, begged Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg to change the direction of New York’s criminal-justice system. Speaking to the thousands attending her husband’s funeral, she continued: “The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even members of the service. I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA. I hope he is watching you speak through me right now.”

Days later, Karina Mora eulogized her brother, NYPD officer Wilbert Mora, in Spanish, describing him and Rivera as “two young men who wanted to make a difference and a change in their city with their service and their sacrifice. . . . Now, I only ask myself how many more Wilberts? How many more Jasons? How many officers must lose their lives so that the system changes?” Rivera, 22, a rookie officer, and Mora, 27, a cop for four years, died responding to a domestic violence call on January 21, 2022. Both were shot in the head during an ambush by a career criminal.