Posted on 12/15/2005 12:31:32 PM PST by areafiftyone
The murdered officer's spirit was warmth enough for the thousands of his comrades who lined the frigid Bronx street as his coffin was shouldered up the dozen steep steps at St. John's Chrysostom Church yesterday morning. The family of Police Officer Daniel Enchautegui came behind, followed into the church by Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Gov. Pataki. The procession down the aisle was headed by a little girl wearing a white altar server's vestment and holding a wooden crucifix in her two small hands. Her name is Morgan Betancourt. She will be 11 tomorrow. This was her first funeral, and there she was, a tiny figure leading the way at the biggest, saddest event of the day in the greatest city on Earth. "When I get nervous, I tell myself not to be nervous," Morgan later said. "Or I tell myself, 'Be nervous,' and then I'm not. It's like I'm trying to prove myself wrong." In her own small way, Morgan was following Enchautegui's brave example as she preceded his mortal remains to the foot of the altar, her back straight, her shoulders squared, her stride even, her diminutive feet setting the pace for even the biggest of the big shots. The officer's family turned into the front pew on the right. The mayor and police commissioner turned into the left. Morgan continued to her humble place at the back corner of the sanctuary. She was joined by a fellow altar girl, 13-year-old Lissette Rivera, who was also serving at her first funeral. "Overwhelming," Lissette later said. The rest of the church filled with neighbors and uniformed cops, their faces ruddied by the cold. Thepastor, the Rev. Carlos Rodriguez, reminded the assemblage of the oath that Enchautegui took on joining the NYPD three years ago. "To serve and protect the people of this great city," Rodriguez said. Enchautegui had lived and died keeping that vow. "Do not mourn him because you think he is gone," Rodriguez then said, "because Danny is not gone." Rodriguez meant Enchautegui's spirit lives on. A spark of that same dedication and desire to serve was unmistakable in little Morgan as she stood in reverent attendance with Lissette. Neither girl missed a cue through the Mass, and their singular reward was to be of service to a power greater than themselves. "There's just something about it that I like," Morgan later said. Then came the eulogies from the mayor, the police commissioner and the murdered officer's heartbroken sister, Yolanda Rosa. Another 10-year-old might have been shaken, but Morgan remained perfectly poised when the time came forher to take up the crucifix again and lead the way from the church. The day seemed to have turned only colder, and an icy wind billowed Morgan's white surplice as she stood to the right of the steps. Her bare hands must have been freezing to the point of needling pain, and nobody could have faulted her if she tucked her fingers up into her sleeves. But Morgan kept both bare hands firmly on the wooden shaft as the coffin was carried to the hearse and the twin buglers played taps and the honor guard folded the flag and presented it to the family and the helicopters flew overhead. The NYPD Pipes and Drums now took the lead, striking up a mournful rhythm perfected by too many funerals. The procession passed by thousands upon thousands of police officers who had taken the same oath as their fallen comrade. When the cops dispersed, Morgan still had both bare hands firmly gripping the crucifix. She was asked if her hands had not hurt in the arctic cold. "It wasn't too bad," she said. She was stoic and stalwart enough to be a cop herself someday, but her heart is set on becoming an actress. She had appeared in the school Christmas play just last week. "I was Mary," she said. From the plucky little girl who had played the Blessed Mother now came some words for the family of the second uncommonly brave city cop to be murdered as we come to Christmas. "Even though the person's not here right now, they're in a better place and they will always be in our hearts," Morgan said.
Originally published on December 15, 2005
SOME BACKGROUND ON THE STORY:
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| Officers pay respects to Daniel Enchautegui at St. Raymond's Cemetery, the Bronx. |
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| Grief is etched on face of Pedro Enchautegui as he mourns his son, Officer Daniel Enchautegui, during funeral services at St. John's Chrysostom Church in the Bronx yesterday. |
Holding her hand over her broken heart, slain cop Daniel Enchautegui's sister joined 20,000 cops to bid him a bittersweet goodbye that mixed tears with pride in the young hero.
"I am so proud of my brother, you have no idea, no idea," Yolanda Rosa Nazario said, as she eulogized the 28-year-old officer in a Bronx church.
"Thank you for caring," Rosa, 41, told the cops packed into in St. John's Chrysostom Church.
"You are my soul brothers and soul sisters ... there to protect and serve us," she added, as her mother, Maria, nodded from the first pew and her father, Pedro, brushed away tears.
Outside, a sea of blue uniforms - 20,000 cops from New York and around the country - shuddered in the bitter cold to honor the second of the city's finest to be killed in less than two weeks.
Offering the final blessing at yesterday's Mass was Edward Cardinal Egan, who praised Enchautegui as a "young hero of the Bronx."
The three-year NYPD veteran proved he deserved such a billing early Saturday when he heard a window break next door to his Bronx home.
He went to investigate and confronted two thugs who had broken into an apartment looking for drugs.
Enchautegui was shot in the chest - but still managed to empty his gun, hitting alleged triggerman Steven Armento, 48, six times and "Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato, 29, twice. Both now face murder charges.
The cop's selfless leap into action and his bravery in the face of death surprised no one who knew him.
"Never forget, Danny embodied all that was honorable in police work," Mayor Bloomberg said as he told the officer's grieving family the NYPD would posthumously promote their "Danny" to the rank of first-grade detective.
To applause from the crowd, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly presented Enchautegui's father the coveted gold shield.
The ailing, elderly man clutched the shield to his heart as Rosa wrapped one arm around him and the other around her weeping mother.
"As amazing as his feat of courage is, in some ways it is not surprising. It is simply in the DNA of officers like Danny," Kelly told the 2,000 who filled the two floors of the church.
"In trying to fathom the origins of his incredible bravery, his closest friends and colleagues can only return to one, undeniable source of strength: his family," Kelly said.
Enchautegui was a man who knew he wanted to be a cop since he was a little boy growing up in Queens and the Bronx.
He worked as a security guard to put himself through John Jay College of Criminal Justice and joined the NYPD in 2002, diploma in hand.
He wanted, and got, an assignment in the South Bronx.
Patrolling the streets of the 40th Precinct, he found a brother in his partner Officer Robert Korn, who yesterday struggled to find ways to carry a piece of "Danny" with him.
"I have quite a few mementos, personal effects. We used to go shooting together. So I have a lot of our old targets that we used," Korn, 27, said.
"I'll carry a picture inside my hat. The Mass card and some other little pictures I had of him as well. I have a stack to go through."
Korn's father, Daniel Korn, 54, of Harrisburg, Pa., said Enchautegui became a member of the family. "The last thing I said to him was 'Take care of my son,' and he said he would," the elder Korn said.
Enchautegui loved everything about being a cop, his partner said, from the prestigious duties to seeming grunt work.
Bloomberg noted that same professionalism when he told a story of how Enchautegui and Korn tracked down the address of an Alzheimer's patient found wandering the streets.
They not only found the address, they drove him home when they could have simply left him at a nearby hospital.
"For those who knew Danny, they know service came very easy to him because of the love he had for his parents and family," said the Rev. Carlos Rodriguez, pastor of St. John's and a police chaplain.
He also never lost his quirky sense of humor, which had his fellow officers tag him "Homer" because he loved, "The Simpsons."
What would have pleased Enchautegui most, friends said, was the image of thousands of cops standing in the 19-degree cold in his honor.
"He would have gotten great pleasure watching everybody as a family out there braving the weather," Robert Korn said.
Originally published on December 15, 2005
Ping
You make the world safer for the rest of us.
This thread is probably not the best place to point out the correlation between the introduction of "altar girls" and the reduction of vocational callings among young Catholic men.
There is no correlation. What you are doing is known as Post Hoc ergo propter hoc.
You try to tie an effect to a cause with no proof.
The fact is, the shortage of men attending seminaries started long before altar girls were approved.
I was an altar boy for about four years. I know I did one wedding, but I don't remember doing any funerals. 'Course, this was 30 years ago...
Bless her small heart for serving the last wishes of a hero - she'll be a great woman someday.
It takes a special little girl to remember and honor a fallen hero. May he rest in peace, and I hope his family finds closure soon. The little girl sounds like an angel in child's clothing, truly a gift from God.
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