The family of slain Bronx NYPD police officer Miosotis Familia will get help from a foundation as questions continue to surround the circumstances of her death and her deceased murderer.
Leaders of the Stephen Siller Tunnels to Towers Foundation announced at a Friday, July 7 press conference in Times Square the foundation was collecting donations for the Familia family.
Chairman Frank Siller, the brother of Stephen Siller, a firefighter who ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel on 9/11 to the World Trade Center where he died in the collapse, said another police officer assassinated in the line of duty was reminiscent of the killing of NYPD detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn in 2014.
“Officer Miosotis Familia was killed in the exact same way,” Siller said. “She was shot through a window of a command vehicle and murdered in cold blood. This is yet another senseless tragedy.”
Familia, 48, was shot in the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 5 while sitting in an NYPD mobile command vehicle.
The gunman, Alexander Bonds, was killed soon afterwards by responding police officers.
NYPD Chief of Patrol Terance Monahan remembered Familia as a single mother raising three children, who also cared for her elderly mother.
“She was their caregiver, their sole support,” Monahan said. “She was the one they depended on for everything and she was taken away solely because she was a cop.”
Family was unable to attend the event as they were busy with funeral arrangements.
Viewing hours were held Monday, July 10 at World Changers Church on Grand Concourse, with a funeral Mass held the next morning.
The group kicked off the fundraiser with a $100,000 donation.
Funds will go to the family’s immediate housing needs.
And the remainder will be put in a trust for her three children.
Donations can be made online at the foundation’s website, www.Tunne
Bonds was treated at St. Barnabas Hospital just days prior to the shooting.
He shot Familia while she and her partner were sitting in a mobile command unit in Fordham Heights.
On Thursday, July 6, Governor Cuomo announced a review of Bond’s treatment prior to the shooting by the NYS Department of Health and Office of Mental Health to determine whether all relevant policies, procedures and safeguards were taken by the hospital.
Bonds, 34, a convicted felon with a lengthy rap sheet, had been prescribed anti-depressants by the hospital before being released.
Hospital officials and NYPD investigators disagree on how long Bonds was admitted.
The deceased gunman’s girlfriends said she had tried in vain to keep him at the hospital after he made comments saying he wanted to kill people.
St. Barnabas spokesman Howard Metzer said the hospital followed proper procedures in dealing with Bonds.
“We believe all mental health procedures and safeguards were properly followed in the hospital’s evaluation of Mr. Bonds during the seven to eight-hour period he was observed in our emergency room on July 1,” Metzer said. “We welcome any investigation and will fully cooperate.”
