NEW YORK — Steven McDonald, a police officer best known for forgiving a teenage gunman who left him paralyzed in 1986, inspired New York City by choosing a spiritual journey over self-pity and spite, Mayor Bill de Blasio and others said Friday.
McDonald’s “road on this earth was not easy but he showed us what we need to know,” de Blasio told McDonald’s widow, Patti Ann, police officer son and other mourners packed into St. Patrick’s Cathedral for his funeral. “Now we have an obligation to tell his story across this city and all across his nation, especially at this time.”
The officer was a role model at the New York Police Department, the nation’s largest, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said in his eulogy.
“What we can learn from Steven’s life is this: The cycle of violence that plagues so many lives today can be overcome only by breaking down the walls that separate people,” O’Neill said. “The best tools for doing this, Steven taught us, are love, respect, and forgiveness.”
McDonald, 59, who suffered a heart attack last week, died Tuesday at a Long Island hospital.
McDonald was on patrol on July 12, 1986, when he spotted bicycle thief Shavod “Buddha” Jones and two other teenagers in Central Park. When he moved to frisk one of them, the 15-year-old Jones shot McDonald three times, with one bullet piercing his spinal column and leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.
About six months later, with McDonald struggling to recover, he made a statement about Jones through his wife that defined the rest of his life: “I forgive him and hope he can find peace and purpose in his life.”
His son, Conor — who is the same age his dad was when he was shot and now a fourth-generation officer — was interrupted by three ovations as he described his father as a “real Superman.” He could count on his father to call him at 5 a.m. every day to check in before his son would go on patrol, he said.
“He was the greatest man I could ask to be my father.”