NEW YORK, NY – A dozen Manchester Police officers (pictured above), including Chief David Mara, are among thousands of fellow officers from across the country and Canada attending the Dec. 27 funeral in New York City of Officer Rafael “Ralph” Ramos, the New York Police Department officer who was shot and killed Dec. 20 in Brooklyn, along with his partner, Officer Wenjian Liu.
Manchester officers traveled together in a travel van donated by Holloway Motor Cars of Manchester.
According to the New York Times, the number of officers assembled for the funeral at Christ Tabernacle church makes this the “largest sendoff” for a fallen officer in the history of the NYPD.
Ramos and Liu were shot and killed as they sat in their squad car by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who took his own life after the killings.
According to reports, prior to shooting the officers, Brinsley shot his former girlfriend in the abdomen inside her Baltimore apartment, and also left online threats and postings implying the planned police officer killings were in response to the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Garner was killed in New York’s Staten Island in July after a scuffle with police in which they applied a chokehold; Brown was shot and killed in August in Ferguson, Mo., also during a confrontation with local police. Both Garner and Brown were unarmed.
