New York’s finest are leaving the force in record numbers, and it’s not hard to understand why. They make enormous sacrifices and put their lives on the line every day for this city, and in return they get hung out to dry by self-interested politicians and denigrated by corporate executives seeking to prove how ‘woke’ they are.
I know all about the sacrifices police officers make for their community. My husband, Jason Rivera, was killed in the line of duty earlier this year, along with his partner, Wilbert Mora. Jason was a rookie cop. We had been married for a little over three months when I got the call that every police officer’s family dreads.
The loved ones of police officers are acutely aware of the risk of loss. We accept that our husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters are answering a higher calling, and because they are willing to risk injury and death to help make their communities better places to live, we find a way to accept that risk, too.
But I can never just accept what happened to Jason, because it never should have happened.
By Dominique Luzuriaga Rivera. Newsweek 6/16/22
