As Delivered Police Commissioner Safir, First Deputy Commissioner Kelleher, all of the distinguished guests, the families, and in particular the graduates who are about to undertake the work of being police officers. I was very, very happy to see that Police Officer Kenyon Leggett and Police Commissioner Safir both share a common fondness for Theodore Roosevelt. The problem is that I was going to quote Theodore Roosevelt also, so I better throw this speech away, and instead of using a speech that I've prepared, I can tell you what comes from the terrible day that we are going to go through today, which begins as a wonderful day. The city goes through probably some of the worst agony and distress when we lose a police officer because we understand how important police officers are to us, and I want you to always remember that.
Police work is very, very difficult work.
It's very complex work. It involves people's emotions in ways that the other work that people do really don't compare to it. So you should understand that the people of the City of New York have tremendous respect for what you do and who you are. That's a very, very special person that can do that - it takes a special kind of courage, it takes a special ability to discipline your emotions and the feelings of fear, and Police Officer Matthew Dziergowski represented that. He was trying to protect an accident scene where a truck driver and the truck driver's assistant's lives were at risk because their truck was in trouble and they had to close off the highway, and they did.