Explaining the flag on Espinosa's casket
The casket carrying fallen Nassau Police Officer Patricia Espinosa is brought into St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026 in Smithtown. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
Patricia Espinosa's casket was covered by a thin-blue line American flag, a pro-police symbol.
The flag — an American flag in black and white with a blue stripe running horizontally — is meant to represent the conceptual "thin line" of law enforcement standing between chaos and peace society, according to retired Colorado Police Chief Joel F. Shults, who wrote about the flag's origins in a 2025 piece on the pro-law enforcement website police1.com.
Shults said the flag was created in 2014 to show support for law enforcement.
The flags gained popularity following the 2014 killings of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos and the 2016 killings of five Dallas, Texas police officers, according to a 2020 story in Politico magazine.
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.
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