MANHATTAN — Family, friends, NYPD and military members are paying their final respects Wednesday to NYPD Detective Joseph Lemm, who was one of six soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Lemm’s body, in a flag-draped casket, was carried into St. Patrick’s Cathedral amid a sea of blue and salutes.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan will offer the funeral Mass. During the service, Commissioner William Bratton posthumously promoted Lemm to Detective First Grade.
He was killed by a suicide bomber at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan last week. The 45-year-old was a Technical Sergeant in the Air National Guard.
Lemm was a 15-year veteran of the NYPD and served in the 48th Precinct in the Bronx before joining the Bronx Street Crime Unit and Bronx Warrant Squad.
Lemm’s body was returned to New York on Monday. His wife, teenage daughter and young son were at the Stewart Air National Guard Base to meet the casket. On Tuesday, neighbors, friends, NYPD officers and members of the military all attended Lemm’s wake, held at St. Anthony of Padua in West Harrison.
Governor Andrew Cuomo stood outside of the church after the wake and called the NYPD detective a shining example of a hero.
“We should honor this man, and honor what he represents and how he lived his life,” Cuomo said.
After the ceremony, Lemm will be buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne.