Family of cop killed in Bronx by estranged husband says 24-year sentence not enough

The outraged family of a transit cop stabbed to death in her Bronx home nearly four years ago by her estranged husband said Friday that his sentence of 24 years in prison is not enough.

Before Argenis Baez was sentenced Thursday by a Bronx judge to nearly a quarter of a century in jail, victim Arianna Reyes-Gomez’ family said the punishment doesn’t match the crime.

“If we agreed to a 24-year sentence, it was not because we believed her life was worth less. It was not because we accepted that as sufficient,” the slain transit cop’s sister, Norma Julissa Reyes Gomez, 38, said in a victim impact statement.

“Our family no longer wanted or could bear to keep seeing your face in court, or your murderous hands,” she said of Baez. “Every time you appeared, you showed an empty, inattentive demeanor, as if you had no awareness of what you had done. Your presence was a mockery of our pain, a constant provocation. After nearly four years of waiting, emotional exhaustion and being forced to relive the crime again and again, we needed to close this chapter.”

Speaking to the Daily News the following day, she said the murder was hardest on Reyes-Gomez’ 7-year-old son.

“He doesn’t know what he did, but he knows that his dad is in jail,” the sister said. “And when he was 4, we changed his name. Nobody calls him by the previous name. No one.”

The victim’s son is now living with his aunt in Georgia, far from the once-bloody home where Reyes-Gomez breathed her last breath.

It was in that moment that the dedicated cop uttered her last words, “My son,” according to her family, in a futile effort to convince the boy’s father to spare her life for the sake of their little boy.

“She was a generous woman with a pure heart who always put others before herself,” her sister said at the sentencing. “She was a devoted mother, a loving daughter and sister and a hard-working police officer who protected her community with courage.”

On Thursday, before Baez was sentenced to two-dozen years in prison, family members described for the court the impact of their loss.

Norma said the sentence was not punishment enough for what Baez took away from them.

Reyes-Gomez, 31, was stabbed multiple times in her home on Grand Concourse near E. 156th St., police said.

The slain cop’s 34-year-old estranged husband, surrendered to police and was later charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.

The murder outraged various sectors of the city, and served as a reminder that domestic violence affects all parts of the community — including cops, who usually have to deal with the issue on the other side of the door.

The sister said Baez has shown no remorse.

“That guy, he don’t care what he did. He don’t feel sorry for what he did,” she told The News. “He don’t ask about his son. It looked like he don’t care about his son. He don’t mention anything.”