He was a father of two, with another child on the way. And he was the first to die inside a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Monday. Didarul Islam, who'd been a New York City police officer for 3.5 years, was working a corporate security detail at 345 Park Avenue when a gunman walked into the lobby and shot him dead. A 36-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, "he was doing the job that we asked him to do" and "made the ultimate sacrifice," Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said, per the AP. "He died as he lived. A hero." "He's a true blue New Yorker, not only in a uniform he wore," Mayor Eric Adams added from the hospital where Islam was pronounced dead, per the New York Times. "He was saving lives. He was protecting New Yorkers."
At the Islam family home in the Bronx, "the steady stream of mourners continued past 1am Tuesday," per the Times. Friends and relatives noted Islam mentored young men in the city's Bangladeshi community and sent money to relatives and others back in Bangladesh, helping cover medical costs and other expenses. He chose to become a police officer, believing it was something to be proud of, a friend said, even though he was warned it was dangerous. "He would always tell my mother, 'We all have to die one way or another,'" the friend tells the Times. "But we never thought that this might happen," adds a brother-in-law. "We never knew he would be involved in shootings."
The shooter entered 345 Park Avenue's lobby around 6:30pm Monday, shooting Islam and several others before heading to the 33rd floor offices of Rudin Management, the company that owned the building, police say. There, he allegedly killed his fourth victim, and then himself. Tisch said the shooter—whose suicide note reportedly referenced CTE and the NFL, headquartered in the same building—had driven across the country from his home in Las Vegas. His vehicle was observed in Columbia, New Jersey, about two hours before the shooting took place.
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