He cried for us all. Tall, proud and not the type of man who wears his emotions on his sleeve, NYPD Detective Glenn Estrada could hold it back no longer.
Suddenly, he broke down in great, pained sobs on the witness stand yesterday, shocking onlookers. Estrada recounted the moment he learned his partner and great friend, Officer Peter Figoski, was shot.
He was dying.
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It was after 2 a.m. on Dec. 12, 2011. Estrada and Figoski were summoned to back up officers responding to a robbery in East New York. When they got there, he and Figoski split up. It was the last time he saw Figoski standing.
Estrada soon tussled with a man who burst out of the home.
Then he heard a gun go off.
He had a nasty premonition. “I had a lot of bad feelings,” Estrada said.
He started chasing another man who fled the house. Other officers arrived to apprehend the guy, and Estrada, now panicked, ran back to the last place he saw Figoski.
It was too late.
“I attempted to call him on his cellphone,” Estrada began before his voice broke and he reached for a tissue.
“I saw Pete in a stretcher,” he started. Then stopped again.
“EMS was wheeling him out to an ambulance. I helped get him back to the ambulance . . .”
Estrada started crying again, with grief so huge, I feared he’d never again speak.
But he composed himself.
Someone had to bear witness against Lamont Pride, the human filth charged with murdering Figoski.
The entire city mourned. For Figoski was more than a good cop. He was a loving father of four daughters who took a real interest in the people of the community he served.
Nine days after the shooting, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly promoted Estrada to detective.
He would give it all up just to have his partner back.