The Dominican Day parade on Sunday was a festive event as usual,with people cheering and dancing. But this year, some held up posters of Police Officer Miosotis Familia. The 48 year-obsolete mother of three was shot and killed by a mentally ill man final month who was killed by police after he fired his weapon.
Calvin Hunt and his family held a poster to honor Familia, and a Bronx native of Dominican descent."whether she was alive she would've been here,and being from the Bronx we feel the family and the NYPD deserve our respect," he said.
Familia's three children also attended the event and brought a large poster of their mother. They declined to speak to reporters. But others did."She's out there defending all of us, and " said Nancy Quinones,of Harlem. "She died doing what she loved to finish, that's what they said.""She was a symbol, and " said paradegoer Cecilia Anglero. "It shows her strength and how she was out there knowing that it was a dangerous place to be knowing the environment where she was at and she was risking her life to make the community better not only for her own children but for everybody who came through that community."Mayor Bill de Blasio saw Familia's children at the parade and invited them to march with him.
The parade's organizers planned to give Familia a posthumous lifetime service award.
Source: thetakeaway.org