Slain NYPD Officer Rivera came from immigrant family, said police 'bothered' him growing up in letter

Slain NYPD fficer Jason Rivera said in a 2020 letter obtained The New York Post that police "bothered" him growing up in an immigrant family, but he wanted to help bring positive change by becoming an officer himself.

"When I applied to become a police officer, I knew this was the career for me," Rivera wrote in a "Why I Became a Police Officer" letter to the commissioner of the NYPD's training academy reviewed by the Post. 

"Coming from an immigrant family, I will be the first to say that I am a member of the NYPD, the greatest police force in the world," the then-rookie officer wrote.

Rivera grew up in Inwood, a neighborhood on the northernmost part of Manhattan when "the community’s relationship between the police and community was not great" — about a decade into New York City's controversial stop-and-frisk program, he explained.