On Monday evening, around 6 p.m., New York Police Officer Didarul Islam was working as a paid security guard at a Midtown Manhattan office building when a man walked into the lobby and opened fire. Four people were killed, including Officer Islam.
“He was saving lives. He was protecting New Yorkers,” Mayor Eric Adams said Monday at a news conference at the Manhattan hospital where Officer Islam was pronounced dead. “He embodies what this city is all about. He’s a true blue New Yorker, not only in a uniform he wore.”
Today, the NYPD turned out to honor Officer Islam, console his family, and demonstrate their solidarity with each other in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
"I am so heartbroken for you and for your family. And as we scan that sea of blue, you will notice that they look a whole lot like Dada," Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the ceremony, using Islam's nickname. "They wear his uniform, his shield, his collar, brass. They carry on his purpose and are sworn to finish the work that he started, and they will be there for you always."
Officer Islam arrived in the United States in 2009 at the age of 20, a legal immigrant from Bangladesh. He worked as a school safety officer, attended night school, and joined the NYPD in 2021.
He was married with two young sons. His wife is pregnant with their third child.
"He was doing the job that we asked him to do," Tisch said in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. "He put himself in harm’s way. He made the ultimate sacrifice. He died as he lived. A hero."
Officers put their lives on the line when they approach a car during a traffic stop. They put their lives on the line when they chase armed suspects. And they put their lives on the line when they respond—as hundreds of officers did on Monday evening—to a flood of frantic 911 calls reporting an active shooter inside a midtown office building.
It’s more important than ever that we reacquaint ourselves with the sacrifices that officers make for us every day. In a city like New York, where the police presence is so visible, it’s easy to take for granted that our calls for help will be answered. Add to that the complacency of a mainstream media that focuses more on what cops get wrong than on what they get right, and you can see why it’s getting increasingly difficult to find men and women willing to make such sacrifices.
This isn’t just speculation. The NYPD has been struggling for years with recruiting and retaining talent. It has been forced to lower educational and physical standards for prospective applicants in order to fill academy classes fast enough to keep up with the flood of retirements and early separations.
Officer Islam did not step in front of a bullet intended for an innocent. He didn't rescue a kidnapping victim or save the city from a terrorist intent on blowing up a building.
But Officer Islam was a hero nonetheless. Every day, he got up, dressed himself, and put on the uniform he was honored to wear. He performed his duties with courage and determination, protecting and serving his community in the Bronx every day without fanfare.
Islam couldn't have been oblivious to those who use hysterical criticism of the police department as a way to gain notoriety. The constant barrage of criticism and negative press had to weigh on him, as it weighs on most officers.
It didn't matter. He still got up every working day and proudly put on the uniform.
Officer Islam had so many reasons not to join New York’s Finest. He joined anyway. He didn’t have superpowers. He wasn’t invincible. He was just a regular guy working to support his family—and that makes him a hero in every sense of the word. May his sacrifice be an inspiration to us all and a source of consolation and pride for his family, especially his wife and children.
As for those who gain notoriety by deriding the NYPD and the work that it does, I hope this tragedy will make them stop and consider something: the calls coming from those Park Avenue offices on Monday evening were not asking for mediators, social workers, or unarmed safety agents. They were asking for armed police officers.
Officer Islam was honored out of sight of all the cameras and phones when his body was transferred on Tuesday from the Medical Examiner's office to the funeral home, where his remains were to be prepared for burial. In many ways, this simple transfer embodies what these men and women of the NYPD and police departments all across America live for. And die for.
