Wilbert Mora, 27, joined the department in 2018. He and his partner, Jason Rivera, were killed by a man who opened fire during a domestic call, the police said.
A second New York City police officer has died from injuries sustained on Friday when a gunman opened fire during a domestic disturbance call in Harlem, the police commissioner announced on Tuesday.
The officer, Wilbert Mora, who joined the Police Department in 2018, was mortally wounded along with his partner, Jason Rivera, 22, who was pronounced dead on Friday. Officer Mora, 27, was rushed into surgery at Harlem Hospital.
In the days that followed, police officials and Mayor Eric Adams described Mr. Mora as fighting for his life at the hospital.
“He’s in for a long struggle,” said Patrick J. Lynch of the Police Benevolent Association, the patrolman’s union, speaking at the hospital on Saturday. “He’s a strong kid, so we’re hopeful that one day we’re here to walk him out.”
But Officer Mora’s injuries were too severe, and two days after being transferred to NYU Langone Medical Center, he was pronounced dead. Commissioner Keechant Sewell said on Tuesday that Officer Mora was a “hero” for both his service on the force — and for becoming an organ donor in his death.
It was the first time two city police officers had been killed in the line of duty since 2014, when Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were ambushed and shot at point-blank range while they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn.
Police officials said Officers Rivera and Mora had responded around 6:30 p.m. to a call from a woman who said her son had threatened her. When they arrived, the son, later identified by the police as Lashawn McNeil, was in a bedroom down a narrow hallway.
As Officers Rivera and Mora approached the bedroom door, Mr. McNeil, 47, emerged and began firing, officials said. Both officers were struck; Mr. McNeil was shot in the arm and the head by a third officer as he tried to leave the apartment. Mr. McNeil died on Monday of his injuries.
Reached by phone at a number registered to a member of Officer Mora’s family, a man who answered the phone was briefly overcome by emotion and declined to speak about him.
Four officers were shot in the city last week. On Tuesday, a patrol officer was shot in the leg while confronting a teenage suspect in the Bronx, the police said, and on Thursday, a detective was shot while executing a search warrant in Staten Island. Neither of those injuries was life-threatening.
Officers Rivera and Mora had been assigned to the 32nd Precinct in Harlem. Officer Mora was assigned to the precinct in 2019, according to a Police Department profile. Officer Rivera, who had roughly 18 months on the job, had been assigned to the precinct in May.
Chelsia Rose Marcius, Troy Closson and Rebecca Davis O’Brien contributed reporting.
