By Sarina Trangle
Although James McNaughton was the first NYPD officer killed in the Iraq war, the Middle Village resident’s gun continues to fight city crime.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly entrusted the late U.S. Army Reserve staff sergeant’s weapon to one of his family friends, Frank Dello Iacono, while distributing shields and guns to NYPD recruits Dec. 16.
Dello Iacono said he hopes the weapon will help him bring pride to the McNaughton family after he graduates from the Police Academy Dec. 27.
“I was honored to be even thought of to receive that,” Dello Iacono, 25, said. “It was a very momentous occasion for me.”
Christopher McNaughton, James “Jimmy” McNaughton’s father, said he has been passing the firearm around as a way to commemorate his son, who was killed by a sniper while training an Iraqi officer in a tower Aug. 2, 2005.
The elder McNaughton, a retired police officer, initially gave the gun to a man his son befriended while in the 306th Military Police Battalion. He said his son’s comrade returned the gun when he was deployed to Iraq again.
McNaughton then asked a fellow NYPD retiree, former Sgt. Robert Dello Iacono, whether his son, Frank Dello Iacono, would be interested in using the gun once he joined the NYPD.
The Dello Iaconos eagerly accepted the offer.
McNaughton said the weapon was symbolic of his son, who began carrying a gun at 18, when he enlisted in the military straight out of high school.
“How I feel is that Jimmy is out there on patrol,” McNaughton said. “My son is in the weapon.”
The military honorably discharged the younger McNaughton after five years of service in 2001. He promptly signed up for the reserves.
“He got out July 1 and July 2 he was at a 9/11 class at Police Academy,” McNaughton said.
The NYPD stationed McNaughton in a transit bureau charged with policing downtown Manhattan subways. The young officer got engaged to a woman in the NYPD and moved from Long Island to Queens in 2004, his father said.
Later that year, McNaughton accepted an offer to serve in Iraq. While there, he volunteered to train Iraqi officers in an elevated tower because he did not want to endanger fellow soldiers who had children, according to a biography posted on a commemorative website.
That’s when a sniper fatally struck him. He was 27.
The elder McNaughton said his son’s friends established The James McNaughton Foundation in his honor. The nonprofit collects donations and organizes benefits for various projects, including The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and The Wounded Warrior Project, which assist injured military members, veterans and their families, and a scholarship fund at the younger McNaughton’s high school in Long Island.
“That’s the thing that makes it a little easier for us, to know that Jimmy is still paying it forward,” McNaughton said.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
