
Slain cop joined the NYPD to improve community relations stemming from stop and frisk, letter reveals
CNN
The 22-year-old NYPD officer who was killed in the line of duty during a police response to a domestic call at a home in Harlem on Friday night said his first-hand experience with the controversial policy of stop and frisk and the department's effort to bolster community relations ultimately propelled him to join the department.
"I remember one day when I witnessed my brother being stopped and frisked," Jason Rivera wrote in an undated letter to his commanding officer, penned while he was in the police academy. "I asked myself, why are we being pulled over if we are in a taxi," Rivera wrote.
Rivera, who entered the police academy on November 2, 2020, according to a source with the knowledge of the officer's records, said his community of Inwood was at odds with the NYPD but soon saw the department make efforts to change their ways, according to the letter obtained by CNN.