MALVERNE — Detective Steven McDonald, seated in a wheelchair and dependent on a respirator to breathe, faced a room full of reporters who came to hear his first public statement since becoming a quadriplegic several months earlier.
McDonald, a New York Police Department anti-crime, plain-clothes officer, was shot three times on July 12, 1986, while trying to question three teenage boys in Central Park. One bullet entered his throat and bored into his spinal column, paralyzing his body below the neck.
Doctors didn’t think he would live, but he did, enthralling the entire city, including the mayor, Ed Koch, and Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of New York.
Both attended the press conference March 1, 1987, at Bellevue Hospital where moments before, the cardinal baptized McDonald’s infant son, Conor. The detective had recently regained the ability to talk, but with great difficulty. So, his wife, Patti Ann, delivered the statement.
“I’m sometimes angry at the teenage boy who shot me,” she read, weeping. “But more often I feel sorry for him. I only hope that he can turn his life to helping and not hurting people.
“I forgive him and hope he can find peace and purpose in his life.”
The world thus got its first glimpse of McDonald’s character. His message of forgiveness became a ministry.
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Although dependent on a wheelchair and respirator, he traveled the world — including multiple stops in the Diocese of Brooklyn — sharing the joy and peace that comes with forgiveness. He died in 2017 at age 59.
Now, 40 years since the shooting, the NYPD will rename New York City Police Academy for McDonald. The ceremony on July 16 will be the 42nd anniversary of the date he entered the academy. It has been located in College Point, Queens since 2014.
“Steven McDonald is truly the embodiment of who we want our officers to be,” Commissioner Jessica Tisch said recently during the annual “State of the NYPD” address.
“His story,” she continued, “became known well beyond this city because it reflected something deeper than policing. It reflected what moral strength and courage actually look like when tested.”
Patty Ann McDonald told The Tablet on April 4 how Conor’s birth strengthened her husband’s resolve to forgive.
“When he saw his son,” she recalled, “Steven knew that, for him to be a husband and a father, he needed to let go and forgive the young boy that who shot him.”
She said Cardinal O’Connor had explained to them that forgiving the teen was a matter of “accepting the grace” to do so.
“Through our faith, there are graces that we receive,” McDonald said. “And one of those is forgiveness. Whether you choose to accept it is your choice. Steven chose to forgive.
“And, if he hadn’t, there is no way that he would have been able to live 30 and a half more years.”
McDonald also described how she and son learned about renaming the academy.
Conor McDonald, who followed his father into law enforcement, is now a captain for the NYPD. He informed her that Commissioner Tisch wanted to visit with them at 1 Police Plaza, and he had no idea what she wanted to discuss.
Patti Ann McDonald said that, when they met on Jan. 29, she jokingly asked Tisch if she and her son were in trouble.
But the commissioner responded that she had something else to share with them — that the department wanted to rename the academy for her husband.
McDonald said she isn’t someone to be “lost for words, but she was then.
“My mouth dropped open,’” she recalled.
She said Tisch also said the idea came to her in early January during the annual Mass honoring Steven McDonald in the Lady Chapel behind the sanctuary at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in honor of Mary.
The Mass is celebrated there each year on Jan. 10, the date of his death.
“Having the academy named after Steven is something that, in his wildest dreams, my wildest dreams, and Conor’s wildest dreams — we never expected anything like this,” McDonald said. “But, with that said, I’m extremely honored and proud that the police commissioner felt strongly about doing this.”
Tisch also told the McDonalds that the Jan. 10 Mass was where she got the idea to appoint Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the recently retired archbishop of New York, to become a co-chief of chaplains for the NYPD, McDonald said.
Cardinal Dolan, who celebrated Steven McDonald’s funeral Mass, praised Tisch on March 4 after being sworn in and receiving his “shield” for the new role.
He said she “brought down the house” with applause when she officially announced the move at the end of her “State of the NYPD” address on Feb. 10.
Still, Patti Ann McDonald said the renaming also honors all NYPD officers killed or injured in the line of duty, and their families.
“It just baffles me, and it saddens me, that there are individuals out there who are so negative about the police,” she said. “But anytime I hear about a police officer being shot or injured, it just brings me back to July 12th of 1986, just like it does for every other widow or widower.
“So, it’s not just about honoring Steven. It’s for every police officer that gave his life or was injured in the line of duty.”
