Hundreds of New York’s finest dignitaries gathered in Queens early Saturday morning to memorialize a rookie policeman who was ambushed and killed while sitting in his private car there 34 years ago.
Mourners remember Edward Byrne at a midnight party on the corner of 107th Ave. and Inwood St. In southern Jamaica – steps away from where he was shot dead on February 26, 1988 while guarding the home of a drug witness. He was only 22 years old.
He didn’t ask why. “He took his job and understood its importance,” said NYPD Chief Inspector Vincent Tavalaro.
Among those present were family members of the hero cop, as well as NYPD Commissioner Kishant Sewell and other senior officers.
“On one hand, it’s very comforting but on the other hand, it’s a constant reminder of how challenging the task is,” Ken Byrne, Breines’ brother, said of the anniversary.
“It’s a sobering memory of all the cops who do this job every day, and it’s one of the toughest jobs you can ever do.”
This year’s celebration came a month after a professional criminal killed police officers Jason Rivera, 22, and Wilbert Mora, 27, during a local call in an apartment in East Harlem.
“Since the beginning of the year, seven New York City officers have not returned home safely, and two, Detective Rivera and Detective Mora, will never return,” Tavalaro said.
Ken Byrne said the officers’ deaths were “like getting things back together.”
“I can’t imagine what those families are going through,” he told The Post after the ceremony. “I was there to take this hit and it’s not a good day.”
Byrne’s murder drew national attention from President Ronald Reagan and Vice Republican nominee George H.W. Bush, who carried his badge on the campaign trail and later kept it in the Oval Office, The police said.
Four men were convicted in connection with the assassination.
.
