NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Two NYPD funerals are now planned at St. Patrick’s Cathedral after a second officer wounded in Friday’s shooting ambush in Harlem died days after his partner.
Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, was taken off life support Tuesday. His partner, Officer Jason Rivera, 22, died on Friday.
Both officers will be remembered and honored at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.
A wake for Rivera will be held from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday. His funeral will be at 9 a.m. Friday.
A wake for Mora is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. next Tuesday. His funeral will be at 10 a.m. next Wednesday.
First responders from across the country are expected to attend the funerals.
A candlelight vigil was planned for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday outside the 32nd Precinct stationhouse in Harlem as a memorial of candles and flowers continued to grow there.
Mayor Eric Adams ordered flags to remain at half-staff following the death of Mora, who’d been on life support at NYU Langone Medical Center since he was transferred there from Harlem Hospital on Sunday.
Outside Mora’s E. 112th Street apartment building in East Harlem, baskets of blue and white roses surrounded dozens of candles and photos of the officer as a child.
Neighbor John Cepeda said Mora “was a good guy” who “always did right.” He said residents of the apartment building are “weary.”
“Everybody’s just like, ‘When is this going to stop?’ Too many passings, too many diseases, too many shootings. It’s enough,” Cepeda said.
Even after it was clear Mora wouldn't survive the shooting, he was kept on life support and moved to NYU Langone so his organs could be donated in accordance with his and his family's wishes.
In announcing Mora's death Tuesday, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the officer was “three times a hero” for choosing a life of service, for sacrificing his life to protect others, and for donating his organs. Officials said even in death he could save the lives of three or four people in need of donations.
The two officers were responding to a domestic disturbance call when they were shot at an apartment on W. 135th Street, just down the street from the 32nd Precinct stationhouse.
The man who shot the officers, 47-year-old Lashawn McNeil, died of his injuries at a hospital Monday, according to police.
The two officers were called to the apartment by a woman who said she needed help with her adult son. McNeil threw open a bedroom door and shot the officers as they walked down a narrow hall, police said.
McNeil’s mother told the New York Post she was trying to convince her son to get help for mental health issues and that she wouldn't have called 911 had she known he was going to use violence against the officers.
Police said McNeil used a handgun that had been reported stolen in Baltimore in 2017 and that the gun was equipped with a high-capacity magazine. Police said they also found a loaded semi-automatic rifle under his mattress.
The head of the city's largest police union, the Police Benevolent Association, said Tuesday that “True heroes never die,” and that Mora will “live on in the heart of every New York City police officer from this day forward.”
“We are called upon to put ourselves between evil and the good people of this city,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement. “Police Officer Mora showed us what it means to carry out our mission with courage, skill and humanity.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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