President Donald Trump on Tuesday singled out NYPD Detective Miosotis Familia, who was gunned down while sitting in a police vehicle in the Bronx, as he spoke at the annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service.
Addressing Familia’s family, Trump said it was an honor to have them with him and that her legacy would never die.
“Where is that family? Where is that great family?” Trump asked as he pointed to Familia’s family sitting in the audience before asking them to join him on the stage. “New York Police Department, close to my heart.
“We weren’t going to bring you up, but I looked at you in the audience and I said you have to come up because you’re representing something so important,” he added, saying the family had the “best genes I’ve ever seen.”
Familia, 48, a 12-year veteran and mother of three, was killed on July 5 as she was sitting in a mobile command vehicle in Fordham Heights. She was shot in the face through the window.
The man who killed her, Alexander Bonds, was killed by responding officers after he brandished a revolver. Bonds, an ex-con who had a history of mental illness and had apparently been acting erratically before the shooting, had posted complaints and accusations against police officers on Facebook.
“She was ambushed by a man for the simple reason that she was a member of the police department, she was a member of law enforcement, that was the simple reason,” Trump said, adding: “She loved the department, she loved being a police officer, she loved her job, she was respected by everybody. They told me all about her. She was respected by everybody.”
Familia’s partner, Det. Vincent Maher, who was also unexpectedly pulled to the podium by Trump, said he was with her the night she was killed, and that he had worked with her on and off for 10 years. He said she had only been back on patrol for about two weeks after recovering from an unrelated injury before she was shot.
“I had the honor of being with her that night,” Maher said. “She may have been lost that night but she saved a lot of lives, in turn, because of her memory and everything that transpired after the fact. She was an incredible person and she is missed by family.
“This family, forget it, they’re incredible,” he added.
