Remembering lives lost in Manhattan tragedy

Photo: Don Ramey Logan via Wikimedia Commons.

Yesterday’s mass shooting in Manhattan has left us grieving as a nation.

In one of the busiest and most vibrant cities in the world, four people were senselessly killed, and others wounded, in an act of violence that once again shakes our collective conscience.

Among the victims was Police Officer Didarul Islam, a 36-year-old husband and father of two, with a third child on the way. Officer Islam, off-duty but in uniform, was working a private security detail when he was shot and killed.

An immigrant from Bangladesh and a devoted public servant, Officer Islam had served nearly four years with the NYPD.

City leaders described him as someone who represented the very best of the department: brave, selfless, and deeply committed to his family and his city.

We remember Wesley LePatner, a senior managing director at Blackstone and mother of two.

Two other civilians lost their lives in the shooting, and one person remains hospitalized. The shooter, who acted alone, took his own life after the attack.

This kind of violence is not normal, and it must never become so.

The loss of Officer Islam and the others is a tragedy that touches all of us, not only because of who they were, but because of what their deaths reveal about our society’s continued failure to address gun violence and public safety.

We grieve.

We remember.

And we commit ourselves to seeking a better way.

May Officer Didarul Islam and all who were lost rest in peace.

May their memories be a blessing—and a call to action.

Edgewater Presbyterian Church extends its deepest condolences to all affected by this tragedy.

Let us pray

God of mercy, we come before you in grief, in sorrow, and in disbelief as we lift up the lives lost in yesterday’s shooting in Manhattan.

We pray for the families of the four beloved souls who were taken—for their aching hearts, their unanswered questions, their unbearable loss.

We lift before you Officer Didarul Islam, a servant of the people, a husband, a father, a man of deep faith.

Though we call upon you in our Christian tradition, we honor the faithful life of our Muslim brother, whose final act was one of courage, protection, and sacrifice.

Grant comfort to his family as they mourn a hero taken too soon.

We remember Wesley LePatner, a mother and leader whose light touched many.

And we pray for the two other victims not yet named—their lives known fully to you, O Lord.

Hold their loved ones in the shelter of your compassion.

We pray for the wounded still fighting for healing, for the terrified witnesses, for the first responders who walked into danger, and for a city shaken again by the senseless sound of gunfire.

O God of justice and peace, do not let our prayers end in silence. Let them move us—into action, into courage, into reshaping a world where such grief is no longer common.

Let not another child lose a parent.

Let not another partner grieve alone.

Let not another sacred life fall to violence.

May your peace surround the grieving.

May your justice stir the living.

And may your love, which knows no boundary of faith, gather all the fallen into your eternal embrace.

Amen.