Slain NYPD officer 'died a patriot,' mayor says at funeral
NEW YORK - A New York police officer and mother of three was honored at a funeral Tuesday, six days after she was gunned down in a marked police vehicle.
Officer Miosotis Familia, 48 and a 12-year veteran, "died a patriot," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the service.
"She was killed solely because she wore a uniform," he said. "She was murdered while acting as an agent of peace."
Familia was sitting and writing in her memo book when she was shot and killed early July 5 in The Bronx. The gunman fled on foot and was shot and killed by police.
The slain officer is survived by three children, a 20-year-old and 12-year-old twins, according to ABC station WABC-TV in New York.
Rev. Barbara Williams-Harris, a chaplain with the NYPD, said it's important to lift up her family, the family of blood and the family of blue.
"We're here to lay a hero to rest, but we have to remember the many ways she was a hero. In her service to this city, and her love for her family and all she did for everyone she came across in life," De Blasio said at the service.
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Familia died hours after July 4. The mayor said, "She died the night her nation was born. And she died a patriot, defending all of us."
"Back in 1776 it was farmers and craftsmen [who] put on a uniform to fight for freedom," the mayor said. "Centuries later, in that same spirit, [it] was Miosotis Familia who put on a uniform."
She "died for all of us," he said.