The gold braid. It’s what NYPD recruits are awarded when they graduate from the Police Academy in the top 10 percent of their class.
Mayor Adams, a retired police captain, earned his when he graduated from the academy. So did Officer Jay Pena when he joined the department four and a half years ago.
Pena wore his aiguillette proudly on his uniform in a photo that sat Wednesday on the altar of a Brooklyn church, where his two families came together for his funeral just days after Pena was killed in a hit-and-run highway crash that knocked him off his beloved motorcycle.
Mourners said Pena was at the top of his class both in the department and in life.
“Everyone wants that gold braid in the academy,” said NYPD Captain Thomas Maffei, commander of the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn Heights, where Pena worked. “They only give out a few per academy class. It means you dedicated yourself and pushed yourself, and that’s what Officer Pena did.”
Cops said Pena was on his way home from the precinct following a shift last week when a box truck driver on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway struck Pena’s Yamaha motorcycle near the Atlantic Ave. exit in Cobble Hill.
Pena, 30, was thrown from the bike, which kept going along the highway, slamming into a wall and exploding into flames just before 9 a.m. on Aug. 27.
Pena was thrown onto the asphalt by the impact, and died a short time later at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
Truck driver Carlos Almanzar Toribio stopped to remove pieces of the motorcycle wreckage from his vehicle, then kept going, police said. He was arrested later that day and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, operating an unregistered vehicle and driving without a license plate.
Pena’s police family and relatives crowded into Brooklyn’s Our Lady of Angels Church, and took turns telling stories about Pena’s “hypnotic, mesmerizing smile” and his protective demeanor.
Straight-laced cousin Jacqueline Burgos recalled a night out with Pena and several of their other cousins when she had an unexpected blast.
“It was probably the funnest night we had,” Burgos said. “He couldn’t believe I could have fun like that. That made me really happy. I felt like I was protected. I could let loose with him because he had an aura about him, and you felt like you were safe when he was there. He was happy. His smile lit the room. He was loved and he loved deeply.”
She said Pena was the man behind one of her greatest life lessons: “Live life to the fullest and follow your passions unapologetically, like he did to his very last day.”
Burgos was talking about living life without regrets. But she was also talking about the motorcycle.
According to a longtime friend, Pena barely survived another motorcycle crash years earlier. Eight years ago Pena miraculously bounced back after being gravely injured in a motorcycle accident in Pennsylvania, a crash that broke a pelvic bone and required him to get a skin graft.
After he learned to walk again, he got back on the motorcycle.
Maffei wasn’t surprised. He said Pena was always up for a challenge.
The latest, Maffei told mourners, was Pena’s desire to move to the NYPD’s Harbor Unit.
“You don’t see that transfer request very often,” said Maffei, whose precinct covers neighborhoods bordering the East River. “I see that water every day. I would never voluntarily go inside that water. Officer Pena was like, ‘Sign me right up.’ It just shows you the type of caliber officer Pena was, the dedication he had, the commitment he gave, putting every ounce of himself into becoming a police officer.”
