Family mourns NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller, shot by ex-con during Queens car stop

NEW YORK — Funeral arrangements were being made Tuesday as the city continues to reel from the slaying of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller by an ex-con who pulled a gun during a routine Queens car stop, officials said.

NYPD cops stood shoulder to shoulder Monday night as Diller’s body was taken out of Jamaica Hospital and transported to the morgue, then to a funeral home where thousands of cops are expected to pay final respects later in the week.

“He was walked out honorably, to many tears and salutes,” Diller’s brother-in-law Jonathan McAuley, a fellow NYPD cop, posted on Facebook. “What started out as an everyday car stop instantly became a moment where so many lives would be turned upside down.”

Diller leaves behind a young bride and 1-year-old son. McAuley posted a picture of the baby son wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “My Daddy’s life matters.”

“There are no words to describe how devastated we are that you are gone,” McAuley wrote. “You were a good man and a great father whose shoes can never be filled. I swear to you that I will look after your son as if he were my own.”

Diller, a member of the NYPD’s Queens South Community Response Team, was patrolling Far Rockaway with his partner when they saw a Kia SUV idling in a bus stop on Mott Ave. near Smith Place just before 5:50 p.m. Monday.

“To those of you out there in the streets, it can be so easy to become wrapped into the moment,” Diller’s brother-in-law wrote to fellow first responders. “To think horrible events like this cant happen to you. To become focused on making that next arrest or racing to the action. Remember those who love you at those moments.”

The cops asked Lindy Jones, 41, and Guy Rivera, 34, to move the vehicle but they refused, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

“[Rivera] was asked to leave the car,” Kenny said at a news conference at Jamaica Hospital, where Mayor Adams announced Diller’s death. “He was given a lawful order numerous times to step out of the car and he refused. Instead of stepping out of the car he shot our officer.”

Diller, 31, was shot in the torso underneath his bullet-resistant vest. Despite the mortal wound he “still stayed in the fight,” Kenny said.

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