Family, friends and uniformed colleagues of Jonathan Diller, a police officer shot dead earlier in the week, gathered this Saturday for his funeral at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church.
The 31-year-old officer was posthumously promoted to detective. His badge number was 110, his son's birthday. "What he loved most was being Ryan’s dad," explained NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban.
Mayor Eric Adams, formerly a police captain, also spoke at his funeral. He promised to stand by officers and their families and ensure that "criminals are held accountable for their history of crimes." Diller's alleged killer, Guy Rivera (34), had been arrested more than twenty times.
Police officials in the city demanded that officials who promoted policies that harmed the police refrain from attending the funeral. Although she denied being kicked out, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly left the vigil Saturday after being approached by an aide.
"How many more police officers and how many more families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them?" Stephanie Diller, the wife of the deceased officer asked this Saturday. She recalled that two years and two months have passed since detectives Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera were killed. She said, "Dominque Rivera stood in front of all the elected officials present today pleading for change," but "that change never came."
"We worked hard, we relaxed at home when we could and we had the cutest dog in the world, Tucker," she said, looking back on the life of her husband, the youngest of three brothers raised on Long Island. "When I would meet people, I would say: if you like me, just wait until you meet my husband."
What motivated him most, she said, was being a father. Together they had a one-year-old son, Ryan:
He was excited that Ryan’s first word was "Dada," and I remember, I would playfully try to get him to say "Mama" instead. But now I never want to stop hearing Ryan say "Dada" to me.
"Our lifes were pretty much perfect, until five days ago, when everything changed forever," she said, before sharing:
He wasn’t the type to sugar-coat anything, so I won’t sugar-coat this: This is devastating, its a devastating, senseless and tragic loss for so many — our family, our friends, and the entire city of New York.
