More names to never forget added to NYPD memorial wall

Some 36 families from Long Island, New York City and elsewhere filled the lobby of police headquarters in Manhattan on Tuesday for the NYPD Memorial Day ceremony, a poignant commemoration of officers who died in the line of duty in recent years.

Most of the 36 officers honored had died of illnesses related to their work in the days after Sept. 11, 2001. Two, Det. Wilbert B. Mora and Det. Jason Rivera, were shot dead on Jan. 21, 2022, while answering a call of a domestic incident in East Harlem. The gunman, Lashawn McNeil, 47, was shot and killed by a rookie cop as he tried to flee.

The killings of Mora and Rivera happened in the early days of the new administration of Mayor Eric Adams. On Tuesday, the mayor recalled the terrible night both cops died.

“I think about that over and over again,” Adams told the hushed crowd. “Just hearing the cries and the tears, that we hear so often.”

“We often forget that even when the bullet hits the physical body it doesn’t stop tearing apart the anatomy of our spirit and our communities,” the mayor said.

The setting in which Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell addressed the families was a large foyer, the walls of which are lined with nearly a dozen bronze plaques now containing the names of 1,151 officers who died in the line of duty since 1849.

According to former NYPD Officer Michael Bosak, who writes about department history, the first memorial plaque was set up about 1912 in the old headquarters building at 240 Centre St. and was funded by millionaire John Jacob Astor. As more officers died, the plaques grew in number and have come to include civilian employees, school crossing guards and traffic agents, as well as officers who died serving in the military.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, most of the names added have been of those officers who died from their work in the recovery effort related to Ground Zero. The names of 23 cops who died in the collapse of the Twin Towers were listed in earlier ceremonies over the years.

Police Officer Michael Romano of Bethpage died Jan. 16, 2021, at age 54, of rectal cancer connected to his work at Ground Zero. He worked in the NYPD’s high profile ceremonial unit, among other assignments

Romano’s widow, Laura, stood in the lobby of 1 Police Plaza Tuesday with their two children — one, Michael, 24, an NYPD cop, assigned to the 109th Precinct in Flushing — describing the couple's marriage of 28 years, how they met in college, how he was a lacrosse player.

“He loved his job and he loved his family,” Laura Romano said, adding “my son followed in his footsteps.”

“It gives you comfort knowing that he’s not forgotten,” she said of the ceremony.

Another cop memorialized, Matthew von Seydewitz of Lindenhurst, died on Jan. 27, 2020, at the age of 48 from colon cancer. Von Seydewitz worked at Ground Zero for six weeks straight.

His mother, Joanna von Seydewitz of upstate Smallwood, said her son loved being a cop on the street and worked out of the 13th Precinct in Manhattan.

Karen Darcy, the officer’s sister, said, “He kept his work and private life separate. He wouldn’t talk about the horrors that he saw down at the pile on 9/11. He wanted to spare us all that. You know, we’d ask him, ‘how are you?’ He just kept it — separate.”

After all the name plaques were unveiled the families headed to a private luncheon. Behind in the foyer, the air remained filled with the fragrance from floral displays donated by police fraternal groups.