January 28, 2022
The eyes of New York City turned toward midtown this morning as the funeral mass for Police Officer Jason Rivera got underway at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Moving eulogies were delivered by Mayor Eric Adams, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, PBA President Patrick Lynch, and Inspector Amir Yakatally. Commissioner Sewell promoted Rivera posthumously to Detective First Class. Also speaking today were Rivera’s brother Jeffery and widow Dominique. Thousands of police officers from NYPD and around the World lined 5th Avenue as hundreds of motorcycle cops escorted the hearse to a private funeral after the mass.
But hours earlier Tata, as he was known to his family and friends, was honored and remembered by his buddies from Dyckman Run Club up here last night. They gathered at Tryon Public House where they picked up memorial shirts and covid masks in the outdoor dining shed before crossing Broadway to warm up for a two mile run in Tata’s honor.
The story goes that a then 19 year old Tata needed to shed a few pounds in order to qualify for NYPD so he took up running with this group. To a person, everyone praised him as a great guy – always cheerful and positive, and just a pleasure to be around. DRC was joined by runners from NYPD and other groups from around the City.
After some stretching exercises, the runners took off down Dyckman toward 10th Avenue, then swinging by Tata’s building on Nagle. They looped back and jogged through Quisqueya Plaza on their way to the Dyckman ball fields by the Marina. There they took the long way round to complete some more of the 2 mile course before heading back to the corner of Broadway and Riverside for a candle lighting and moment of silence.
The brief remarks were simple and powerful. A reverend from Harlem, Jeffrey Crenshaw, said that Tata had wanted to make a difference and that now it was on the rest of us to continue the effort. There was a call and response of “one gunshot/is one too many.” Tata’s DRC buds recalled his hopes for better relations between NYPD and the community.
One running buddy, Alex, a founder of the DRC and a good friend of Tata, tried to make sense of the senseless tragedy. He mused that if it’s possible for anything good to come from this, it would be the healing of police and community relations. Tata belonged to both Inwood and to NYPD and both were badly shaken by his passing. Could it be that out of this shared loss a path forward opens up? That would be the greatest tribute to Tata if it did.
For me it’s very sad to loss a young men for a delinquent crazy men with out of thinking. Please do something about mother should prevented that his was very angers and should will killed any one.