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NEW YORK: Mourners packed a New York mosque on Thursday to honor a Bangladesh-born police officer who embraced the job of protecting his adopted city and gave his life for it when a gunman opened fire in an office building this week.
Officer Didarul Islam “did believe in the American dream, not as something handed down but as something built with your own hands,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told Islam’s family and friends as his fellow officers lined up rows deep outside the Bronx house of worship.
Dignitaries and members of the New York’s thriving Bangladeshi community also paid tribute to the fallen officer during a memorial that emphasized the importance he placed on his family, background and service to the city.
A married father of two with a third child on the way, the 36-year-old was working a New York Police Department-approved private security detail, in uniform, when he and three other people were killed Monday at the Manhattan skyscraper that houses the NFL’s headquarters and other corporate offices.
“To our family, he was our world. To the city, he was a proud NYPD officer who served with compassion and integrity. He lived to help others,” Islam’s widow said in a statement that a relative read on her behalf at the service at the Parkchester Jame Masjid mosque.
With officers stationed on surrounding rooftops for security, fire trucks used their ladders to hold a huge American flag over a nearby street. A flatbed truck carried a digital billboard showing photos of Islam and a commemorative message from his union.
 

White House sends condolences
After coming to the United States, Islam began building a career in the nation’s largest police force. He described policing as “a blanket of the community, there to provide comfort and care,” the police commissioner said.
Islam served as a school safety agent before becoming a patrol officer less than four years ago, and was promoted posthumously Thursday to detective.
“He could have gone into any other occupation he wanted, but he wanted to put on that uniform, and he wanted to protect fellow New Yorkers. And he wanted to let us know that he believed in what this city and what this country stood for,” Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, told the gathering. “That’s the greatest symbol of what we know we are as a country.”
In Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt began her daily briefing by expressing President Donald Trump’s condolences to Islam’s family, saying he “made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of his fellow New Yorkers.”
A ‘humble, steady, and reliable’ officer
Like others who spoke, Imam Zakir Ahmed highlighted the officer’s immigrant background and Muslim faith. But said Islam “lived at a time when people like him are too often feared, vilified and made to feel like outsiders.”
“It’s time for New York and America to give back — to see us, to hear us, to protect our dignity, the way Officer Islam protected yours,” Ahmed said.
The eldest of several siblings, Islam supported his parents in Bangladesh, as well as his wife and two young sons in the Bronx, the imam said. The police commissioner said Islam worked a long day at a parade Sunday, then picked up private security hours Monday at the office building.
Deputy Inspector Muhammad Ashraf, the commander of the busy Bronx precinct where Islam worked, said he was a “humble, steady and reliable” officer.
“He knew what it meant to protect the place that gave him a new beginning, and in return, he gave everything back,” Ashraf said at Thursday’s service.
After the service, the streets filled with people, mostly men, kneeling in prayer. Some Muslim officers took part, as colleagues stood in formation behind them and looked on.

Later, officers saluted as Islam’s casket, draped in US and NYPD flags, was brought to a hearse for burial at a cemetery in Totowa, New Jersey.
Another victim, real estate firm worker Julia Hyman, 27, was mourned at an emotional service Wednesday at a Manhattan synagogue.
Funeral arrangements for the two others killed, security guard Aland Etienne and investment firm executive Wesley LePatner, have not been made public.
Governor praises officer for saving lives
Police identified the gunman as Shane Tamura, a 27-year old former high school football player who most recently worked in a Las Vegas casino’s surveillance department. Authorities say he believed he had a brain disease linked to contact sports and accused the NFL of hiding the dangers of playing football.
On Thursday, police said they found more than 800 rounds of ammunition in Tamura’s car and had recovered 47 shell casings in the building’s lobby and the office floor where Hyman was killed.
Police said Tamura had a history of mental illness, but they haven’t elaborated other than to say they found psychiatric medication prescribed to him at his residence in Las Vegas.
Officials said he was heading for the NFL’s office but took the wrong elevator and went by mistake to another floor. The gunfire seriously injured an NFL employee in the lobby.
Islam “saved lives. He was out front,” Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said at Thursday’s service. “Others may be alive today because he was the barrier.”
 

MINNEAPOLIS: A Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam was hit by serious turbulence, sending 25 people on board to hospitals and forcing the flight to divert to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the airline said.

The Airbus A330-900, carrying 275 customers and 13-member crew, landed around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. The airport fire department and paramedics met the flight. The 25 were taken to hospitals for evaluation and treatment, the airline said.

One passenger said people who weren’t wearing seat belts were thrown about the cabin.

“They hit the ceiling, and then they fell to the ground,” Leann Clement-Nash told ABC News. “And the carts also hit the ceiling and fell to the ground and people were injured. It happened several times, so it was really scary.”

Delta said in a statement: “We are grateful for the support of all emergency responders involved.”

Serious injuries from in-flight turbulence are rare, but scientists say they may be becoming more common as climate change alters the jet stream.

The disturbance Wednesday is one of several turbulence-impacted flights reported this year. It also raises awareness about aviation safety ranging from of January’s midair collision over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, to last weekend’s smoking jet at Denver International Airport, where passengers slid down an emergency slide.

Regarding turbulence, five people were taken to a North Carolina hospital for evaluation in June after an American Airlines flight from Miami hit turbulence on its way to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The plane landed safely.

Earlier that month, severe storms in southern Germany forced a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing after violent turbulence injured nine people on board, German police said. The flight was traveling from Berlin to Milan with 179 passengers and six crew members. Eight passengers and one crew member were hurt.

A United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Singapore experienced severe turbulence in March. At the time, the plane carrying 174 passengers and 14 crew members were flying over the Philippines. Five people were injured and the plane was able to land safely in Singapore.

Several flights were diverted to Waco, Texas, on March 3, because of turbulence. Five people were injured aboard one of them, a United Express plane flying from Springfield, Missouri, to Houston.

A man was killed when a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence in May 2024, the first person to die from turbulence on a major airline in several decades.