Thousands of police officers, local elected officials, and mourners lined up outside a Bronx mosque Thursday to honor NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, who was gunned down in a Midtown mass shooting inside a Park Ave. office building.
A sea of blue uniforms washed over Virginia Ave. outside the Parkchester Jame Masjid as funeral services for the fallen cop began at 10 a.m., beginning with a viewing for female mourners.
Prayer services were expected to begin at noon.
Mayor Adams, Gov. Hochul, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and other elected officials were expected to attend.
Islam, a father of two with a baby on the way, was one of the four people killed by Shane Tamura inside 345 Park Ave. on Monday.
Islam’s father, Abdur Rob, suffered a minor heart attack after rushing to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell and being told that his son had not survived the 6:30 p.m. bloodbath.
Islam’s family spent much of Wednesday praying at the Parkchester Jame Masjid. They did not speak to reporters as they left the mosque and went home, just a few blocks away.
On Wednesday night, Mayor Adams visited with Islam’s family and spoke with Rob and other family members.
“(I) heard a number of stories about him and how the values they instilled in their son made him the hero he was,” Adams wrote on X. “I pray for their peace, and I hope the strength of their family bond brings comfort and healing in the face of this heartbreaking loss.”
Adams and Tisch also went to the 47th Precinct stationhouse where Islam worked on Wednesday to attend morning roll call and talk to cops mourning their colleague’s death.
Islam had been a cop since 2021. He was in uniform working a paid security detail in the building at E. 51st St. authorized by the NYPD when Tamura stormed inside with the assault rifle and started firing, hitting him repeatedly in the torso.
Tamura, a resident of Las Vegas, also killed building security guard Aland Etienne, 46, and Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, 43, in the lobby. He then took an elevator to the 33rd floor where he killed Julia Hyman, 27, and narrowly shot a cleaner, before taking his own life.
He fired more than 40 shots from a high-powered AR-15 assault rifle, littering the lobby and 33rd floor with bullets and blood, NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said Wednesday.
“I’ve been doing this 32 years,” Chell said, getting choked up at times during the interview on Fox 5’s “Good Day New York.” “Just getting there on that scene and realizing you had casualties and there was an active shooter going on. This is not a normal event.”
“We lost four great New Yorkers,” he added. “They didn’t deserve this. This was pure evil. Senseless.”
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