FINAL RESPECTS:Officers yesterday carry the casket of 9/11 hero cop George Wong (above). Right, how The Post broke the story of city morgue workers grabbing Wong’s body from a funeral home for re-examination.
Mayor Bloomberg insisted yesterday that city morgue workers had every right to seize the body of an NYPD cop from a funeral home and expunge references to 9/11 toxins from his death certificate.
“The bottom line is that if the law requires, for nonnatural causes, to do an investigation, that’s what it’s going to be . . . I’m sorry that anybody felt upset about it,” Bloomberg said.
Relatives of cancer-stricken retired Officer George Wong held a belated funeral yesterday, saying they still hadn’t heard directly from city officials apologizing for having plucked the officer’s body from the Ng Fook funeral home Monday night.
“I was really upset. They took the body again to cut it or whatever,” Wong’s mother, Mei Sin Wong, 73, said through an interpreter. “It’s not respectful for the Chinese people.”
Wong’s brother, Howard, 40, said he hadn’t heard a peep of an apology.
“I welcome apologies, but if they wanted to apologize they had yesterday to apologize, or the day before or any other day but they didn’t,” he said. “They have my phone number if they want to contact me.”
George Wong died last Thursday at age 48 of gastric cancer, and his hospice doctor wrote that the cancer was related to Wong’s time at Ground Zero
The finding raised flags at the Department of Health, as official city policy does not acknowledge that exposure to Ground Zero dust is linked to “emerging illnesses, including cancer.”
The family refused to allow an autopsy to go forward, but city coroners conducted an “external examination” that gave it legal authority to change the official cause of death to “pending.”
George Wong “was there directing trucks with all the debris,” said his former partner in the Fifth Precinct, retired cop Franklin Cosom. “He didn’t have any mask or anything.”
Six cops carried Wong’s American-flag-draped coffin to a hearse en route to cremation. A truck held his official NYPD portrait and his badge number 3254 in flowers.
Other city officials said the medical examiner erred.
“We all know Officer Wong died from a disease related to
9/11,” said City Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan). “I don’t understand why the city would do something so disrespectful.”
Additional reporting by David Seifman