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‘We Are Not Safe Anymore’: Widow Of Slain NYPD Officer Calls Out Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg In Heartbreaking Eulogy, Wins Standing Ovation

Widow of slain NYPD officer Jason Rivera speaks[Twitter Screenshot Jackson Richman]

[Twitter Screenshot Jackson Richman]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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The widow of slain New York Police Department (NYPD) Officer Jason Rivera slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Friday for not keeping the city safe.

Dominique Luzuriaga spoke about her husband, Rivera, during his funeral service. “You have the whole nation on gridlock,” a distraught Luzuriaga said about Rivera. “And although you won’t be here anymore, I want you to live through me.”

“The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service. I know you were tired of these new laws, especially the ones from the new DA. I hope he’s watching you speak through me right now,” she said, followed by a loud round of applause and a standing ovation.

Luzuriaga told the crowd of mourners how she and Rivera had had an “argument” the morning of his death.

“You know, it’s hard being a cop wife sometimes,” a sobbing Luzuriaga said, noting despite all the hardships of being a cop’s wife, Rivera “always reminded me that it was going to be alright.”

“This Friday we were arguing because I didn’t want you to use your job phone while we were together,” she said, noting how she called an Uber to leave his apartment since the couple were fighting. “I didn’t want to continue to argue [so I] ordered an Uber. You asked me if you ‘are sure that you don’t want me to take you home. It might be the last ride I give you?’ I said no.”

“That was probably the biggest mistake I ever made,” a sobbing Luzuriaga said. “Later that day I received a call I wish none of you that are sitting here with me will ever receive.”

Rivera, 22, and his partner Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, were ambushed at a Harlem apartment building by 47-year-old Lashawn McNeil while responding to a domestic violence call last Friday. Rivera died on Jan. 21, but Mora lived for two more days as doctors tried to remove the bullet lodged in his brain. (RELATED: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Blames Rise In Violence On America’s ‘Fixation With Guns’)

McNeil opened fire on the officers as they tried to talk to him.

Newly elected Bragg has come under fire for the lenient policies he has enacted since taking office and following the recent string of shootings said he plans on taking a tougher stance against gun violence, according to The New York Times (NYT). While campaigning, Bragg emphasized that certain gun possession cases did not need to lead to imprisonment or prosecution, according to the report.

“It’s certainly a change in emphasis,” Bragg said following the shootings, according to the NYT. “It’s certainly not a change in my thinking or in my work.”