'Absolutely beautiful' tribute to fallen Suffolk officer

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but upon setting eyes on a portrait of her husband, sitting relaxed on a boat under the Jamaican sun, Susan Ciano was moved to utter just two.

"Absolutely beautiful," she said Thursday, smiling and flanked by her family and Glen Ciano's extended family of police officers and Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association members at an unveiling of the cherrywood-framed portrait at PBA headquarters in Bohemia.

Ciano, 45, was killed in the line of duty on Feb. 22 last year when he was struck by a car driven by an alleged drunken driver, Jose Borbon, as Ciano went to assist a fellow police officer who had stopped another motorist in Commack.

The portrait is the work of Brooklyn-based artist Jodi Reznik, who has painted portraits of four New York Police Department officers. She used a picture Susan Ciano said was snapped several years ago during a vacation in the Caribbean.

"It's an absolutely fantastic painting," Ciano said after the ceremony, adding the picture would probably be mounted in the family room where the Cianos spend a lot of time. "It really pulls out a lot of his personality. It's helping us with his legacy. To look at this picture every day in the house is just going to bring him back with us."

Both Susan Ciano and her mother-in-law, Johanna, wore necklaces in the shape of Glen Ciano's shield, 㜙.

Reznik said the image seemed to best capture Ciano's qualities.

"He made everybody realize that doing for others and helping other people is what not just being police officer is about, but what being a good human being is about," PBA president Feff Frayler said.

The portrait was made possible by the Police Surgeons Benevolent Association, a nonprofit organization made up primarily of retired officers who are health care professionals.

"We just wanted to do something," said PSBA trustee Thomas Conogue. "It will never take the pain away, but just maybe make [it] a little softer."