Hours after a gunman opened fire inside a New York City high-rise office building on Monday, the news that an NYPD officer was among the victims rattled families of law enforcement throughout the nation. 

36-year-old Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh, was working as a paid detail providing security to the office building – a common way for uniformed NYPD officers to earn overtime pay. 

“This officer was just trying to make a couple extra dollars to pay the bills,” NYPD Sgt. Joe Imperatrice, co-founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC, told Fox News Digital. “And he ends up getting killed by a person that was absolutely deranged, which is even more sad because he didn’t have to be there.” 

In a show of strength, Tisch stood alongside New York City Mayor Eric Adams and PBA President Patrick Hendry to offer the department’s condolences to Islam’s family. 

“He died as he lived,” Tisch said. “A hero.” 

In the wake of Islam’s tragic murder, Imperatrice insists the death of a fellow officer reopens old wounds for members of law enforcement everywhere, especially one year after NYPD officer Jonathan Diller was shot and killed in the line of duty. 

“You pray to God, you pray to every star that we are never going to get that phone call,” Imperatrice said. “But once again, the sea of blue is going to come out from all across the nation. It’s going to send a lightning bolt through everyone’s spine and [they will] realize how precious life is but how evil life can be as well.”

Police officers gather in a street as they respond to a shooting incident in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York on July 28, 2025 in New York City. Four people are dead after being shot during an active shooter incident in midtown Manhattan, including a police officer.  (Liao Pan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

Islam is one of four victims gunned down by the shooter, with authorities identifying security officer Aland Etienne, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner and an unnamed Rudin employee among the deceased. 

However, Imperatrice stresses that Islam will be memorialized as a hero by the NYPD and his loved ones will always have the backing of the department. 

“[Islam’s] name is going to be put on so many different walls, so he’s basically immortal,” Imperatrice said. “But the family just gained over 30,000 officers that are going to be their new family – brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles – and they’re going to be by their side, at their beck and call, through their hardest times during the first couple of days and weeks until the end of time.”