A somber farewell for a city cop, with notes of hope

Officer Didarul Islam was a doting father and a devoted husband, intent on building a life for his family in his adopted city. He was also remembered at his funeral Thursday as a dedicated police officer, who had embarked on a career as a New York City cop with a sense of purpose and duty. 

“In his own words, the police were a blanket of the community there to provide comfort and care. And when he joined this department, he made that his personal responsibility,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Thursday during services at Parkchester Jame Masjid mosque. “But it was the man beneath the shield, steady in spirit, generous in presence, who left the deeper imprint.”

Tisch, Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul and hundreds of officers from the NYPD and other jurisdictions were among those inside and outside the mosque in the eastern Bronx who came to honor the officer. Islam was off-duty but in uniform on paid detail doing security work in the lobby of 345 Park Ave. Monday evening when a Nevada man entered the building and opened fire from an assault rifle. 

Islam, 36, was among four killed by Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old Las Vegas resident, who had driven cross-country to New York City in a few days, apparently intent on harming officials at the National Football League, which has offices at 345 Park. 

Tamura, in a note found in his wallet, blamed the NFL for what he claimed was his chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, a brain disease that afflicts some football players. He accused the league of hiding the dangers of brain injuries. 

Following his rampage at street level and then on the building’s 33rd floor, Tamura, a security guard at a Las Vegas casino who had played football in high school, killed himself.

Islam emigrated from Bangladesh 16 years ago lured “by the promise of a better life,” Tisch said. “And he would build that life and fulfill that promise through service,” the commissioner said, first as a school safety agent and then, starting in December 2021, as city cop. 

Islam took to the job molded by an innate strength of purpose, Tisch said.

“He didn't look for an easier way. He just showed up and he did the work. There's a quiet dignity to that, a quiet dignity. Everything for him was about building something for his family, for his mosque, for his adopted city, and for his relatives back in Bangladesh. They were all in his care and he found peace in watching them grow,” she said. 

Mourners outside Parkchester Jame Masjid mosque, where services were held for Detective Didarul Islam’s Thursday afternoon.

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

‘He was our world’

Islam, a father of two young boys whose wife is pregnant with the couple’s third child, was assigned to the 47th Precinct in the northern Bronx, among the NYPD’s more notorious commands. He stepped up to the challenge, Adams said. 

Although he could have chosen another occupation, being a cop allowed him to fulfill his sense of mission, the mayor said. “And he wanted to let us know that he believed in what the city and what this country stood for,” Adams said. 

Adams, a former NYPD police officer himself, said that while he was angry at the violent and senseless loss of Islam’s life and that of the three others killed, Islam’s dedication to the city he embraced as a husband, father and cop also gave him a sense of belief. 

“I have hope that we still have in our city men and women coming from different walks of life, deciding that they want to wear that blue uniform and fight to protect our city from those who wish to harm us,” Adams said. “I have hope that if we're in this room together in this mosque, lifting up our hero, then we can enter the mosques, the synagogues, the churches, the Buddhist temples, the Sikh temples, and also cross-pollinate and coordinate on how we can make this city a greater place that a person would not believe violence is an answer to the question.” 

Patrick Hendry, the president of the officer’s union, the Police Benevolent Association, said Islam was wholeheartedly committed to the job. 

“Every single day he came to work, he gave it a hundred percent,” Hendry said. “He was determined and he was focused because it was always about providing for his family. Whatever he had to do, whatever hours he had to work, that's what he was about.… He could have chosen any path, but he decided to become a New York City police officer, a job he loved, and he loved putting on that uniform every day and pinning that shield.” 

Islam’s wife, Jamila Akhter, spoke of her husband’s “deep sense of responsibility and duty to his family and community.”

To our family, he was our world,” Akhter said through a family friend speaking on her behalf. “To the city, he was a proud NYPD officer who served with compassion, integrity. He lived to help others and he gave his life protecting them. Though my heart is broken, I find comfort knowing that his sacrifice may have saved others in that lobby, people who are able to go home to their families that day.”

Tisch, who posthumously promoted Islam to the rank of detective first class, noted that among Islam’s beliefs, one, Sadaqah Jariyah, holds that there are acts done in such a way that they keep on giving. Didarul Islam’s “life of service” exemplified that belief, she said.

“Officer Didarul Islam lived that kind of life, one that keeps unfolding in the world he left behind, in the steadiness that he brought to those around him, in the streets that still carry a sense of safety, because he once stood there in the example he offered, not loud, not showing, but strong enough to stay with you,” Tisch said. “His watch may be over, but his impact will never be.”

richardk@thechiefleader.com