Off-duty NYPD officer Didarul Islam was the father of two and his wife was pregnant. She is due with their third child next month.
"Police Officer Didarul Islam represented the very best of our department. He was protecting New Yorkers from danger when his life was tragically cut short today," the NYPD said in a statement.
Islam is an immigrant from Bangladesh and was assigned to the 47th precinct at a stationhouse in Baychester, where purple bunting hangs. He was on the force for three and a half years.
Islam was off duty and working a private security detail assignment at the time of the shooting. He was wearing a uniform, which would have included a bullet-resistant vest, and he was carrying his weapon.
He is the first NYPD officer Bangladeshi descent killed in the line of duty.
"It hurts because he's a member of our community and has a pregnant wife," said Parkchester resident Novel Sarker.
A dignified transfer of Officer Islam's body from the medical examiner's office to a mosque in the Parkchester section of the Bronx took place on Tuesday afternoon. Traffic was held on FDR Drive to clear the roadway for the solemn procession.
The NYPD and FDNY lined the streets to salute Islam.
Dignified transfer of NYPD officer killed in Midtown mass shooting
Neighbors have been paying respects to his family in Parkchester, which is home to a growing Bangladeshi community.
His body arrived at the mosque where his family attends to a community in mourning.
In keeping with his faith, his body is being prepared for a line-of-duty funeral, which will take place on Thursday morning at Parkchester Jame Masjid.
"We do clean, wash the body, and we wrap up with a white cloth. That's our last cloth, we say. Then we put on the funeral. So people can see him before we have the last prayer for him," his father's first cousin Zairul Islam said.
His family says the timing of his death is especially painful. Neighbors paid their respects at his home, where his wife is inconsolable.
"His wife is having, we're expecting a baby next month. And the two boys are little, not big," Islam said.
Officer Islam started as a school safety officer but had been serving in the Bronx's 47th Precinct, where black and purple bunting hangs at the station house.
Sgt. Mohammed Islam who is not related, but felt a kinship with the fellow Bronx cop says the entire department will feel the kinship as it comes together to pay tribute to him and his service.
"We have all of his brothers and sisters behind us. So I feel the strength," Sgt. Islam said.
"He was about providing for his family working every day, no matter what it took, no matter where whether he was doing overtime, he provided he was a soul provider of his family and that's what he did every day," PBA President Patrick Hendry said.
Some of Islam's family members need to travel from overseas for the funeral, and the officer's father is in the hospital. He suffered a medical episode Monday night after learning of his son's death.
In a press conference late Monday night, Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch spoke about the victims and honored Islam for making the ultimate sacrifice.
"He loved this city, and everyone we spoke with stated he was a person of faith and a person that believed in God and believed in living out the life of a godly person. He embodies what the city is all about," Adams said.
"He was doing the job that we asked him to do. He put himself in harms way, he made the ultimate sacrifice. Shot in cold blood, wearing a uniform that stood for the promise that he made to the city," Tisch said.
The shooting happened along Park Avenue, one the nation's most recognized streets, and just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It's also less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over corporate greed.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he knows that area of Manhattan well.
"I trust our Law Enforcement Agencies to get to the bottom of why this crazed lunatic committed such a senseless act of violence. My heart is with the families of the four people who were killed, including the NYPD Officer, who made the ultimate sacrifice," Trump posted on social media.
Three others were killed and a fifth person, an NFL employee, was wounded in the attack.
Investigators believe Shane Tamura, of Las Vegas, was trying to get to the NFL offices in the building Monday after shooting several people in the lobby but entered the wrong elevator banks, Mayor Eric Adams said in interviews.
He took his own life following the shootings.
Police said Tamura had a history of mental illness, and a rambling note found on his body suggested that he had a grievance against the NFL over a claim that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football, but it can only be diagnosed after someone has died.
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Some information from ABC News and the Associated Press
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