NYPD recruit who died in sweltering heat days before graduation remembered at MSG ceremony
The NYPD recruit who died in sweltering heat while training in the Bronx was remembered Monday at the graduation ceremony when he would have joined New York’s Finest.
Edgar Ordonez was memorialized at Madison Square Garden as his grieving family looked on.
“On this day to celebrate and look forward to all that is to come, we are grieving what never was,” NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban told the 620 new cops and their families during the ceremony.
“Edgar was taken too soon, before we even knew the difference he was about to make in our city,” Caban said. “So as you go on each day to finish the work that he started, remember him and know that Egar will alwsy be watching over his brothers and sisters in blue.”
Ordonez’s mother, two sisters and the mother of his two children sat amid the sea of blue.
The 33-year-old recruit was training at the Rodman’s Neck firing range in the Bronx on July 10 when he collapsed shortly before 11:30 a.m. and was later pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.
His death came amid a brutal heat wave that took temperatures to near 100 degrees with the heat index.
On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams greeted his family before addressing the graduating class — referencing the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and the culture of hate behind it.
“Your job is to identify those who are on the pathway to that hate, the radicalization of our young people, the belief that we no longer love the country that made it possible for so many people to move forward,” the mayor told the wave of incoming cops.
“Edgar’s a symbol of that. You think about his mom being an immigrant from another country but coming here pursuing the American dream,” he said. “Sometimes death brings life.
“Those who are part of his company and those who are part of his graduating class, I hope it would inspire you as you move on patrol, and as you answer calls of service.”
