An emotional ceremony honored Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on Sunday, a year after a gunman fatally shot the two NYPD officers while they were sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn.
City leaders joined members of the 84th precinct in downtown Brooklyn to dedicate two bronze plaques for Ramos and Liu.
The Ramos family opted not to speak. But Liu's father, Wei Tang Liu, spoke in Chinese while weeping. Then Liu's widow, Pei Xia Chen, translated.
“This is the longest I haven't heard or seen my son. I would give anything to hear his voice and see him again,” Chen sobbed.
Mayor de Blasio called Liu and Ramos good men who lived full lives. Both were promoted to the rank of detective after their deaths.
“We know how much Detective Liu loved fishing and we know how much he loved to share what he caught with his family. We know Detective Ramos loved playing basketball with his sons, blasting Latin gospel music,” said de Blasio.
The mayor stressed his commitment to protect the NYPD. He has worked hard over the past year to repair strained relations with police, which peaked after the deaths of Ramos and Liu, and at a time when protests against police were spreading all over the country.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton addressed the families directly underscoring the impact of their lost loved ones.
“Their deaths stopped a momentum, a momentum towards a precipice in this country a year ago that was beginning to spin out of control and it stopped that, it stopped that insanity,” said Bratton.
After the plaque dedication, blue and white NYPD buses drove in a caravan to the corner of Myrtle and Tompkins avenues where city officials and the families laid wreaths at the site of the shooting.
Onlookers from around the neighborhood gathered around metal barricades at the site.
“I make sure I teach my son what [the police] are here for,” said Nancy Feliciano, 34, stopped to watch the ceremony with her husband and 10-year-old son. She said, “They don't know you and they risk their life for you.”
After the ceremony, a growing pile of bouquets and candles adorned the sidewalk, a memorial to the lives lost but not forgotten.