Hundreds at Long Beach drowning victim's funeral

About 200 people filled a Harlem church Saturday to mourn the death of the 12-year-old girl who drowned off Long Beach while on a school trip last week.

Family, friends, classmates and teachers filled the Church of the Annunciation to pay respects to Nicole Suriel's family and remember her life.

Nicole, a sixth-grader at Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science & Engineering, drowned last Tuesday.

When Nicole's cream-colored coffin was brought in, everyone in the church stood and turned as a priest sprinkled holy water over it.

After the casket was covered with a white, embroidered sheet, a procession of mourners, some in T-shirts bearing a photograph of Nicole, followed it up the aisle.

With the support of others holding her, Marisol Suriel, Nicole's mother, walked to the front of the church.

With tears streaming down her face at the end of the Spanish-language service, Marisol followed her daughter's body out of the church, grasping with her arms in the air toward the coffin.

When Nicole was carried out of the building, into the light of day, her mother collapsed, held up only by those surrounding her.

After the service, one mourner who didn't give her name said, "I'm so sorry for the family. It's a tragedy."

New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein, along with Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott and City Councilman Robert Jackson (D-Harlem), attended the funeral but did not comment.

Klein spoke at length to Jose Maldonado-Rivera, the school's principal, off to one side of the back half of the church before the service started.

Maldonado-Rivera, who was flanked by a New York City Police Department community affairs officer, did not answer reporters' questions before leaving in a sport utility vehicle.

One of Nicole's schoolmates - Angeline Otuya, 12, of Harlem - who wrote "Nicole 4ever Up" on her leg with a marker - said she had known Nicole for three years.

"She was always a person who was happy, encouraging, loving," Angeline said. "You'd never see her sad."