The sister of slain NYPD officer Wilbert Mora gave a heart-wrenching plea for officials to “take action” against the raging climate of cri...
The sister of slain NYPD officer Wilbert Mora gave a heart-wrenching plea for officials to “take action” against the raging climate of crime in the Big Apple while eulogizing her late brother on Wednesday.
Officer Wilbert Mora, a four-year member of the force, was shot when he and his partner, Officer Jason Rivera, were ambushed while responding to a domestic call in Harlem on Jan. 21.
Rivera, 22, died that day. Mora, 27, died from his wounds Tuesday. Both men were posthumously promoted to detective first grade by NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell.
“It hurts me to know that two exemplary young men, like Officer Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora, were taken before their time,” Mora’s sister, Karina Mora, said during her eulogy, which was delivered in Spanish at St. Patrick’s Cathedral just days after Rivera’s funeral, The New York Post reported.
“Two young people who wanted to make a difference and a change in their city through their service. And now I only ask how many Wilberts, how many Jasons, how many more officers will lose their lives in order for this system to change?” she said to the crowd of thousands, the “sea of blue” that had so recently filled the cathedral and the surrounding streets to mourn Mora’s partner.
“How many more lives of those who protect us will be taken by violence and crime? How many mothers? How many mothers, how many sons will have to lose their families, to go through this trauma and this type of tragedy?” she asked.
“Wilbert Mora was a young man full of dreams, dreams that today will remain incomplete,” she said. “He was the joy of the house. It didn’t matter how tired he was when he came home from work, Wilbert lit up the house with his smile. And today that light is extinguished, with pain, forever.”
The Mora family immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when Wilbert was just 7 years old, Fox News noted. Karina explained how she’d worried for her brother when they were younger, and was relieved when he joined the police force instead of becoming yet another young man lost to the streets.
“I felt an infinite peace to know that my young brother didn’t get lost in the streets of New York. He was making a difference among the young people in our community,” she explained.
“I would have never imagined that my peace would have lasted just four years until that terrible Friday.”
“Who is responsible to prevent this type of tragedy to continue happening?” she asked, urging officials to “take action.”
Her words echo those given by Rivera’s widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, who shared how frustrated her husband had been with city policies, including those from the newly sworn-in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“The system continues to fail us,” Luzuriaga said. “We are not safe anymore, not even the 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.”
Her words, concluded with a resolute gaze over the congregation, drew thundering applause from officers, clergy, and laypeople alike as many rose to their feet in a standing ovation.
Let’s hope Bragg took Ms. Mora’s comments to heart, as well.
Wilbert Mora’s story is both inspiring and heartbreaking. A young man who easily could have ended up wrapped up in a life of crime as do many inner-city youths took it upon himself to serve and protect his community, a noble task that we have, as a nation, grown to take so much for granted that it is literally costing lives.
It’s costing the lives of those men and women who take on the thankless task of protecting people who blame them for “systemic racism” to gain woke points in academic circles and on social media, two spheres lamentably disconnected from real life.
Mora and Rivera, by the way, were both young men of color who, like the whole of NYPD, didn’t oppress their fellow minorities, but put their lives on the line to keep the millions of members of New Yorkers safe, no matter what their skin color or ethnicity.
Yet, thanks to nonsensical and deadly progressive criminal justice reform, millions of Americans, many of whom are minorities, are being put in harm’s way so that tone-deaf, clueless politicians can claim they’re combating racism, somehow.
First in line, of course, to bear the brunt of the violent crime wave that is sweeping our nation — and the criminals being empowered by these progressive policies — are those who sign up to protect and serve.
What kind of leadership hamstrings its own police force? The NYPD is one of the premier law enforcement entity in the world, yet the hard work of its officers is being so sorely undermined by the absurdities of woke, progressive policies that we are watching its greatness be dismantled before our eyes.
For the sake of the memories of Rivera and Mora, for their grieving families, for all the victims of violent crime in progressive-run cities, and for all the fallen officers who gave their lives for the sake of protecting the lives of others, let’s pray that politicians — and voters — wake up to what a deadly game we’ve been playing.
Rest in peace, Wilbert and Jason. May your legacy live on through those who refuse to take this assault on our way of life sitting down.
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