Just days after ISIS-inspired counter protesters threw explosive devices outside Manhattan’s Gracie Mansion, the NYPD graduated more than 900 new cops, each ready to face the challenges and dangers ahead, Mayor Mamdani said Monday.
“As New Yorkers ran from the danger, NYPD officers ran towards it,” Mamdani told the new recruits.
”No one is injured today. No dinner table has an empty seat today. My sincere hope is that none of you ever face a moment like that. But if you do, I stand before you with full confidence that each of you have not just the training, but also the courage to meet it as your fellow officers did to protect our fellow New Yorkers.”
Mamdani had high praise for the newest class of recruits, even with the city on edge over a frightening crime being prosecuted as a terrorist act.
Officials said the 968 new cops come from 40 different countries, and include 45 officers who served in the military.
“This is a city unlike any other, a city that loses a past that speaks every language and brings together people from every corner of the world,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “It requires the ability to remain steady in moments when tensions are high and emotions are running strong.”
Tisch said the job is about putting others above yourself — a sacrifice few understand better than third-generation NYPD officer Officer Anthony Cantore, who put his law enforcement career on hold to donate a kidney to his ailing father.
“The doctor said it wouldn’t affect me physically or anything medically,” Cantore said. “I decided, ‘Why not? Why not do it?’ I feel great. I’m grateful that he’s able to live a regular life, a healthy life, and I’m just glad that he’s here. He’s here for my graduation, to see me today.”
“Everybody’s proud of him,” said the grad’s father, retired Lt. Thomas Cantore. “My father would have been proud. I’m doing well, and everything’s fine. He offered to donate his kidney. I wouldn’t ask him, but he offered.”
New recruit Justin Acevedo, 23, was on the other end of a life-saving act. When he was 11, Acevedo nearly drowned during a trip to Puerto Rico when his chaperone and football coach, Jose Rosario, 45, a retired NYPD detective, rescued him from a powerful riptide.
The boy made it back to the shore. Rosario did not.
“He picked me up to the rock,” Acevedo recalled. “He let me catch my breath, and he said, ‘Okay, you’re gonna start swimming now.’ He threw me. I started swimming. And then when I got to the shore, I turned around and Jose was no longer there. I couldn’t see him.”
He said Rosario inspired him to become a police officer.
“Justin Acevedo, learned the meaning of sacrifice long before he ever set work in the police academy,” Tisch said. “He saw the way that this department honors those who serve.”