The widow of slain NYPD officer Jason Rivera ripped Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in her husband’s eulogy at his funeral Friday morning, as she described the gut-wrenching moment she found out he’d been killed.
“Although you won’t be here anymore, I want you to live through me. This system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service. I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA. I hope he’s watching you speak through me right now,” Dominique Luzuriaga told mourners at St. Patrick’s Cathedral as they gave her a standing ovation.
“I’m sure all of our blue family is tired too. But I promise, we promise, that your death won’t be in vain.”
As Luzuriaga delivered the emotionally charged remarks, Bragg was in the audience listening, law enforcement sources said. He also attended Rivera’s wake Thursday night but his family walked into the back so they didn’t have to sit with him and later in the evening, someone told the embattled DA that the family wouldn’t be coming out until he left.
When asked about Luzuriaga’s remarks aimed at him, Bragg responded in a statement that “violence against police officers will never be tolerated,” the New York Post reports.
“I am grieving and praying for Detective Rivera and Officer Mora today and every day, and my thoughts are with their families and the NYPD,” Bragg said.
“My office will vigorously prosecute cases of violence against police and work to prevent senseless acts like this from ever happening again.”
Bragg has instructed his office not to seek sentences of more than 20 years before parole eligibility. Killing a law enforcement officer can be punished by life without possibility of parole in the state of New York.
