Mourners Gather at Funeral for N.Y.P.D. Officer Killed in Line of Duty

The service for Officer Jonathan Diller drew large crowds of law enforcement officers mourning a colleague slain in a killing that has become a political flashpoint.

Five days after New York City Police Officer Jonathan Diller was fatally shot in the line of duty, friends, family and colleagues gathered to remember him at a funeral on Saturday morning at a Catholic church on Long Island.

The funeral at St. Rose of Lima Church in Massapequa, like the two-day wake that preceded it, drew large crowds of law enforcement officers mourning a life cut short in a killing that has quickly become a political flashpoint.

As the hearse arrived, the area in front of the church on Merrick Road was flooded with thousands of police officers in uniform from New York City and elsewhere throughout the region. An honor guard stood by as a lone bagpiper played at the church entrance and police helicopters buzzed overhead.

Hundreds of people lined the hearse’s route, including children holding signs in support of the police.

Officer Diller, 31, graduated from the State University of New York Maritime College with a degree in marine transportation in 2014. He joined the Police Department in February 2021, and had been recognized three times for “excellent police duty” since then.

He typically worked tougher parts of the southeast section of Queens near Kennedy International Airport. He and a partner were on patrol in such an area on Monday when they pulled up to a car with two people inside that was parked illegally at a bus stop on Mott Avenue in Far Rockaway, the police said.