Mother's tears for ‘A good daughter'

As the coffin of Police Officer Marlene Rivera was carried out of the Metro International Church in Bushwick, Brooklyn her mother began to weep.
A day earlier Ana Fernandez her mother told the media outside her daughter's wake in Ridgewood Queens, &#8220She's a good daughter. She's a good girl.”
Then, the stoic, slight woman had no tears, as relatives dressed in white stood protectively by her side.
On Wednesday, September 27, as Fernandez was handed the tightly folded American flag for her daughter, there was a river of tears. The teardrops continued to stream down her face as a New York Police Department (NYPD) helicopter flew over the funeral procession, so low that hundreds of officers and friends below could feel the prop wash from its blades.
Rivera, 24, a rookie police officer assigned to the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica, died in a car crash on Friday, September 22, and her close friend and fellow 103rd officer, Daniella Baymack, 22, was charged with Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) at the time of the crash.
The cop pals had gone out to a bar on Friday night with a third friend, and it was on the way back from dropping the third officer at her home in Long Island that Baymack lost control of her car and slammed into a signpost on Sunrise Highway in Wantagh, Long Island.
The women, who both graduated from the Police Academy in July, were assigned to Operation Impact, a police initiative that floods high-crime neighborhoods with officers.
Baymack, a Bayside resident, now faces vehicular manslaughter and DWI charges, after having been found with a 0.11 blood alcohol level - the legal limit is 0.08 - the night of the accident. She has been suspended for 30 days from the NYPD.
On Tuesday, September 26, she appeared at a court hearing and wept uncontrollably for her friend.
&#8220Her family is very devastated by what's happened the last few days,” Baymack’s lawyer Dennis Lemke told the media outside the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola.
Friends of Rivera's family said that the slain cop's kin were heartbroken over the loss.
&#8220The family is totally distraught. They are totally distraught. I have no words to express how they might feel,” said Faheem Pollard, 26, who met Rivera three years ago when they worked together at a child-care program.
&#8220She was like an angel, a bubbly angel. She loved her family. She loved children. She loved life,” he said.
Pollard said that he had not spent much time with Rivera and her cop pals, but he said that Rivera had dedicated herself wholeheartedly to her career.
&#8220Marlene loved her job. She loved what she did,” he said.
All dressed in white at the funeral, Sharod Tomlinsor, who graduated with Rivera from Christ the King High School, told reporters of Rivera's passion for her job.
&#8220She just wanted to serve the people,” he said, adding that he had just seen her the Saturday before she was killed.