An NYPD recruit who died during an academy training session was remembered at his funeral Thursday as a humble soul who wanted nothing more than to serve and protect the city he loved.
Probationary Officer Edgar Ordonez collapsed and died just days before his police training was to be completed. Even so, he was saluted like a 20-year veteran by police and city dignitaries who said Ordonez did more than enough to earn his new badge.
“I think about all the officers who have joined the department and how far we’ve come,” Mayor Adams, a retired NYPD captain, said during a service at the Church of St. Anselm in the Bronx.
“And now we’re here for a young man named Edgar, an immigrant from Honduras who decided to put on the police uniform and understand that the prerequisite to our prosperity as a city and country is public safety.“
Adams called Ordonez “an ambassador” and praised officers like Ordonez who highlight the diversity of the department.
“You lost a son,” he said to Ordonez’ parents, “but you picked up a family.”
Ordonez, 33, the father of two daughters, was taking part in an outdoor drill at the NYPD’s training center at Rodmans Neck in the Bronx on July 8 when he got dizzy and collapsed about 11:25 a.m., officials said.
Drills on the 95-degree day involved running, stopping and then firing at a stationary target.
The city Medical Examiner is still working to determine an official cause of death.
NYPD Deputy Chief Amir Yakatally, the police academy’s commanding officer, praised Ordonez’s character and short-lived career.
“Edgar was very well known by his peers,” Yakatally said.
“He was one of over 600 recruits in the academy but when you speak to the recruits that worked with him they spoke of a man who was dedicated to doing his job. He was a father first. He wanted to do this to get his kids in a better position. He wanted to make a difference and he made that very clear amongst all of his peers. He was a motivated young man that pushed through all the challenges in the academy, passed all the exams.”
On Monday, Ordonez was honored at what would have been his graduation at Madison Square Garden.
He was ready to walk,” Yakatally said at the funeral Thursday. “I’m just glad his family was able to attend the graduation.”
Ordonez’s funeral ceremony ended in elaborate pageantry, as the nation’s largest police department assembled outside the Bronx house of worship to honor its fallen member.
Rank upon rank of fellow officers wearing dress-blue uniforms and powder-white gloves lined Tinton Ave. as an honor guard of department motorcycles, cruisers and emergency vehicles assembled with lights flashing red and blue.
A squadron of six department helicopters made a pass above the somber gathering as officers loaded Ordonez’s flag-draped casket into a black hearse.
Church bells rang “Ave Maria” and a police drumline marched to a somber beat as the funeral procession pulled slowly away.
