BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) – A funeral service will be held on Friday to honor NYPD Detective Troy Patterson, who was shot in 1980 and succumbed to his injuries last week.
Troy Patterson was a 27-year-old police officer when a 15-year-old gunman shot him during an attempted robbery in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The shooter and two other teens had tried to rob the off-duty officer, who was washing his car on Jefferson Avenue, for $20.
Patterson survived 33 years with a catastrophic brain injury in a vegetative state. He is remembered by his fellow NYPD officers today as a true icon, a true hero by many members of the NYPD.
Troy Dante Patterson Jr., the detective’s son, recalled the trauma of seeing his dad at Kings County Hospital when he was just a young child of five to PIX11 News.
“I just remember seeing him hooked up to all these machines,” he said.
Over the next three decades, Patterson Jr. became a father himself and has two girls, Detective Patterson’s granddaughters.
