National News

Slain NYPD Officers, FDNY Firefighter Honored at White House 

By The Tablet Staff 

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Two much-honored NYPD officers who were murdered last year received the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor from President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Detectives Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera were gunned down on Jan. 21, 2022, by Lashawn McNeil, 47, while responding to a domestic violence call in a Harlem apartment.

“Our nation is forever in debt to their loved ones and the sacrifice they made on behalf of their fellow citizens,” Biden said before presenting the medals to Mora’s mother and Rivera’s widow.

Detective Sumit Sulan, who fatally shot McNeil, was also presented with the Medal of Valor, the nation’s top honor for public safety officers.

“The entire nation is grateful for the quick thinking and swift action and courage under fire that he demonstrated,” Biden said before bestowing the medal around Sulan’s neck.

FDNY Lt. Justin Hespeler, firefighter Patrick Thornton, and retired Lt. Jason Hickey were also honored at the White House on Wednesday.

Hespeler rescued a newborn baby from a burning house, Thornton saved a man trapped under a capsized vessel off the coast of Staten Island, and Hickey saved a man from drowning in the Harlem River.