Funeral held for NYPD detective killed in Afghanistan
NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - A funeral was held Wednesday at St. Patrick's Cathedral for New York Police Detective Joseph Lemm who was killed by a suicide bomber last week in Afghanistan. Hundreds of police officers, airmen and other service members, friends, family, neighbors, public officials and others came to pay their respects.
Lemm received full military and police honors during the mass officiated by Timothy Cardinal Dolan. Police pallbearers carried the flag-draped casket in and out of the cathedral. Lemm's son, perched atop a cop's shoulders, saluted his father as the casket was carried and placed into the hearse.
Lemm was serving as a technical sergeant in the Air National Guard when he and five other airmen were killed. An insurgent rammed an explosives-packed motorcycle into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol outside of Baghram Air Base, killing six airmen.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called him a hero after meeting with Lemm's widow and two children on Tuesday during Lemm's wake in his hometown of West Harrison, N.Y.
A 15-year veteran of the NYPD, Lemm was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan with the Guard and had served one tour in Iraq. The 45-year-old began his policing career in the village of Ossining where fellow officer Joseph Bracero knew he would be special.