NYPD cop eulogized as 'a true cop's cop'

A friend, a neighbor, a protector. An officer who took pride in the uniform. A true cop's cop.

That's how the New York City mayor, the police commissioner and a precinct supervisor described police officer Alain Schaberger, the man who grew up in East Islip and who returned home Friday for his last goodbye.

Thousands of officers from the New York City Police Department, Suffolk and Nassau police departments, and many other law enforcement agencies paid their respects to one of their own -- the first New York City officer killed in the line of duty since 2009, in a domestic violence incident gone terribly wrong.

Schaberger, who was 42 and engaged to be married in the summer, was shoved over a railing by a suspect he was trying to handcuff. He fell about 9 feet into a concrete stairwell, breaking his neck. The officer had responded early Sunday to an emergency call from a scared woman at a Boerum Hill home that the mayor said was racked by violence and chaos.

It would be his last call. Schaberger, a resident of Westchester who was born in Vietnam, was later pronounced dead at Lutheran Medical Center in Sunset Park.

"It's upsetting to think that this encounter with a violent criminal ended a life as good and promising as Alain's," Mayor Michael Bloomberg told relatives, fellow officers and friends packing a narrow room at the Chapey & Sons Funeral Home in East Islip.

"It makes you heartsick," Bloomberg went on. "It makes you angry. And it makes you deeply, deeply grateful for the work our police officers do."

Five columns of police officers, lined up by rank, filled East Islip's shuttered Main Street as they marched solemnly by the funeral home to the wail of distant bagpipes.

"We're all one brotherhood," said Officer Dan Del Rosario, who works at the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "This could be any one of us. It's a thankless job so we support and help each other."

Det. Insp. Mark DiPaolo, commanding officer of the 84th Precinct, where Schaberger worked, told reporters outside the funeral home that the loss to the department was enormous.

Schaberger was "a real tribute to the New York City Police Department," DiPaolo said, and described him as "a true cop's cop."

DiPaolo called Schaberger quiet and professional -- someone who showed up to work every day and did his best.

"He cared about community, he cared about his fellow officers and he cared about the country," DiPaolo said.

Inside the funeral home, more than 200 cops sat or lined the walls, their caps on their laps and in their hands. Some precinct officers wiped away tears during the eulogies -- as the mayor and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly reminisced about the dedicated officer they called "Berger," the strong and silent former U.S. Navy petty officer who received his baptism by fire coming right out of the police academy to help at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.

Schaberger's parents, May and Paul; his fiancée, Shoshone; his sister Tracey and other family sat near the cherrywood casket, placed under a wooden crucifix and framed by two American flags.

Kelly said that while the loss was "devastating," Schaberger would live on through his acts.

"Alain gave his life in the performance of his sworn duty to protect the public," Kelly said. "The murder of a police officer is not a solitary event. It is an assault upon society."

With Sophia Chang