City in Mourning for Four Victims of Midtown Massacre

A yellow balloon with the handwritten note “LOVE ONE ANOTHER” twisted in the wind at the growing makeshift memorial outside 345 Park Ave., where a crazed gunman killed four innocent people on July 28 before turning the gun on himself.

The victims represented a mosaic of New York. Two graduated from Ivy League colleges and went on to high-powered companies, one in finance, one in real estate. They were both laid to rest last week in services held a day apart at Central Synagogue, located only blocks away from the worst mass shooting in NYC in 25 years. Another victim was an NYPD officer who had emigrated from Bangladesh, and another a security officer who hailed from Haiti.

Three heartbreaking funerals were held last week, for NYPD officer Didarul Islam, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, and Rudin Management associate Julia Hyman.

The fourth and final funeral, for security guard Aland Etienne, will be held on Saturday, Aug. 9, at 8:30am at the Guarino Funeral Home, 9222 Flatlands Ave. in Brooklyn, his family said, with a service immediately following at 10am at the same location.

Etienne died while vainly trying to reach a shutoff switch that would have cut power to the elevators and prevented the gunman from reaching a higher floor.

“This tragedy speaks to the sacrifice of security officers who risk their lives every day to keep New Yorkers and our buildings safe,” said Manny Pastreich, president of 32BJ SEIU. “Every time a security officer puts on their uniform, they put their lives on the line,” Pastreich said. “Aland Etienne is a New York hero. We will remember him as such.”

He is survived by five siblings and a son and a daughter in the Dominican Republic.

A GoFundMe campaign started by a family friend had raised $99,911 as of Aug. 3. “This GoFundMe has been created in honor of Aland’s legacy and to support the most important part of his life—his children. All funds raised will go directly toward their education and well-being, ensuring that even in his absence, his love continues to guide and protect them.”

“My brother Aland was a hard-working man,” Smith Etienne said at a memorial service at the 32BJ service employees union on July 30, according to ABCNews 7, “always doing his part to make the city a little bit safer every day. New York City has lost a hero.”

An estimated 15,000 people, many of them white-gloved police officers, turned out for the funeral of NYPD officer Didarul Islam at a mosque in the Parkchester section of the Bronx on July 31. “He was a son of two cities, born in Salat, Bangladesh, called to New York at the age of 20 by the promise of a better life, and he would build that life and fulfill that promise through service,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. He had started out as a school safety agent before entering the police academy.

Islam was a 36-year-old father of two who was picking up some extra money by working in uniform as security in the office tower at 345 Park Ave. He and his wife were expecting their third child.

A GoFundMe started by Tom Greich, who runs the Queens Chamber of Commerce, had raised $70,105 to aid Islam’s family by our press time on Aug. 3.

Islam became the first victim of Shane Tamura, the 27-year-old Las Vegas man and onetime high school football player who started his deadly assault around 6:30pm on July 28. A three-page suicide note that cops found in Tamura’s pocket after he killed himself said he claimed that he said was suffering from CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a traumatic brain injury that he attributed to his years playing high school football.

Mayor Adams said the killer apparently picked 345 Park Ave. because it is the headquarters of the NFL, which in his suicide note Tamura blamed for not doing enough to combat CTE, which is tied to high-impact collisions in contact sports.

NYPD Commissioner Tisch praised Didarul Islam at a press conference late on July 28 as the city was still learning details about the horror. “He died as he lived, a hero.”

The first heartbreaking funeral was held on July 30 for Julia Hyman, who became the final victim when the killer reached the 33rd floor where she worked as an associate at Rudin Management. Tamura then shot himself and died of a self-inflicted wound to his chest.

“We gather with hearts shattered and spirits heavy, struggling to make sense of a world that has lost someone so luminous, so full of promise, and so deeply loved,” said Hyman’s uncle, Rob Pittman, during the memorial service.

The service, at Central Synagogue, was led by Rabbi Maurice Salth, who said: “Let us be careful about trying to make this tragedy feel better by saying such things as, ‘At least she went quickly,’ or, ‘At least we had her for 27 years.’ ” According to NY Jewish Week, Salth added, “There is nothing that can make this tragedy better or logical.” The service included Hyman’s cousins and groups of friends from the Bronx’s Riverdale Country School, as well as her summer camp and Cornell University, where she graduated five years ago.

Brian Carver and Cat Crocker, the co-deans at Riverdale Country Day School, said in a statement released earlier that Hyman stood out for her “modesty and humility, her desire to see others succeed, and her grit and tenacity in the face of adversity.” She was captain of the swimming, soccer, and lacrosse teams in her senior year there.

One day later, on July 31, another somber funeral service was also held at Central Synagogue for Wesley LePatner, the 43-year-old CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust, who was the second person killed as she tried to take cover behind a marble column in the lobby of 345 Park Ave.

“There is a gaping Mount Everest-size hole in my life right now,” said her husband, Evan Harris LePatner. She is survived by a teenage son and a 14-year-old daughter who also gave a heartbreaking eulogy to her mom: “My mom was like a rock, and every time after school someone said something mean or if something happened, I would talk to her and couldn’t talk to anyone else.”

There were many other somber occasions across the city. One person drove all the way from Detroit to hold a lifesized wooden cross and join mourners in prayer at the makeshift memorial at the corner of Park Avenue and East 51st Street. The street is also known as Jack Rudin Way, named for the philanthropist and real estate developer. The firm is headquartered at 345 Park Ave.

The funerals were the sad coda to a week of mourning. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Mayor Adams, and Gov. Kathy Hochul started the morning after by attending roll call in the 47th Precinct in the Bronx, where Islam was based.

A multi-faith prayer service held by Adams in Bryant Park drew hundreds of mourners the evening after the shootings.

Flags are being dipped for the foreseeable future at all municipal buildings in the city.

“Words cannot express the devastation we feel,” the Blackstone Group said in a statement about LePatner, who had graduated from Yale and returned often. “She was brilliant, passionate, warm, generous, and deeply respected within our firm and beyond.”

Tisch said at the Bryant Park ceremony that she knew LePatner through their shared work at the Jewish philanthropic foundation UJA-Federation of New York, and called her “my beautiful friend Wesley.”

Mourners continued to make their way to the makeshift memorial outside the 44-story tower where the four victims were killed.

Dan Beazley said he had journeyed from Northville, Mich., outside Detroit in order to wheel the 10-foot-tall wooden cross to the makeshift memorial. “I’ve been here since 9:30 this morning praying with people in this dark hour and hoping to see the dawn,” he said on July 30. Earlier in July, Beazley had driven his cross to Kerrville, Texas, after the devastating floods there. According to CBS News, Beazley travels with his cross to parts of the country that have experienced catastrophe.