Recruit mentored by slain NYPD officer receives badge from officer’s widow

By Roni Jacobson, Leonard Greene
New York Daily News

NEW YORK — Years before death New York Police Officer Rafael Ramos joined the police force, was a safety officer at a Staten Island high school, and tried to keep young kids out of trouble.

One such student was Mohammed Ghafari, who befriended Ramos and was inspired to dream of becoming a municipal police officer.

Ramos’ dream became Ghafari’s dream, and nearly 10 years after Ramos was killed in the line of duty, Ghafari followed in his footsteps. Ramos’ widow was there to pin Ghafari’s shiny new badge to his chest.

“I always wanted to be a cop,” Ghafari said Tuesday during his graduation from the NYPD police academy in Queens.

“When I was in high school on Staten Island, my mom was always at school, so I had to stay after school. School Security Agent Ramos would stay with me and wait outside with me.

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One officer was texting when he accidentally fired his gun through the wall of his apartment; another was showing his gun to a co-worker when he fired it through the windshield of his patrol car

“They don’t sign up to get shot,” said Phil Keith, former Knoxville police chief. “They sign up to be public servants.”

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“We just hung out and talked for hours,” Ghafari continued. “He told me a lot about wanting to join the NYPD. A lot of things were going wrong, but he finally got in. That’s when I told myself that no matter what happened, I was going to stay here.”

Ghafari thought he could get through the day without feeling overwhelmed. Then, Ramos’ widow, Maritza Ramos, appeared, and Ghafari became a little moved.

“I have no idea what to feel, how to feel,” Ghafari said. “The fact that she was there to pin my shield on was a blessing and I will never forget that.”

Ghafari will never forget the school where he met Ramos, Police Officer Rocco Laurie High School, was named after a police officer who also died in the line of duty.

This school honors Staten Island officer who was killed along with his partner, Officer Gregory Foster, while on foot patrol on the Lower East Side in February 1972.

Authorities said 23-year-old rookie Laurie and his partner were killed by members of the Black Liberation Army, an underground faction of the Black Panthers who were allegedly attacking police officers.

Similarly, Ramos and his partner Wenjian Liu were riding in a police car near Myrtle and Tompkins Aves. in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on Dec. 20, 2014, when a gunman walked up to the passenger window and shot them both.

Police said the motive for the murders was hatred towards the police after many people died as a result of police actions. Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

Maritza Ramos, who met Ghafari for the first time at the ceremony, said she was happy to see her husband continuing to inspire people years after his death.

“Even though he’s not here, he touched someone’s life in this way,” she said. “He would be honored to know. How beautiful.”

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