The NYPD commander who killed himself amiꦏd a sprawling corruption probe was mourned♌ Tuesday by about 100 uniformed cops who joined his grieving family at a wake on Long Island.
Inspector Michael Ameri was laid out in an open, dark-brown wood casket, with two🗹 members of the Highway District he ran standing guard on either side.
The dead co🧸p waꩲs dressed in his police uniform, hat and white gloves, with black rosary beads wrapped around his hands and a crucifix by his side.
Several mourners wept and sobbed inside the Mangano Funeral Home in Deer Park, with one whispering: “Oh, my God, I can’t believe this. This was too soon.”
Ameri’s mother, Lorraine Ameri, was in attendance along with his 13-year-old son, also named Michael.
About 30 floral arrangements decorated the room, including a life-size replica of Ameri’s NYPD motorcycle built out of blue and gray blooms, and a four-foot-tall, gold-colored police badge surrounded by blossoms.
Two large photo displays featured pictures of Ameri from infancy through adulthood, and also showed him ꦡposing with son and his dad, Robert.
🅠Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who was overseeing the destruction of illegal dirt bikes in Brooklyn, said he would attend the wake when it 🃏continued on Wednesday.
On Monday, Bratton revealed that Ameri had cooperated with authorities and wasn’t a target of the corruption investigation.
Bratton said Tuesday that the reason for Ameri’s desperate act remained a mystery.
“I wish we knew. We don’t know the motivation. There was not, to the best of our awareness, a suicide note,” Bratton told reporters.
“A number of our people (with the NYPD) had been with him the day before to talk with him, felt that things were fine. So that unexpected death, we don’t quite understand at this time what the cause and motivations might have been.”
A funeral ℱmass for Ameri is set for Thursday at Saints Cyril and Methodius Church in Deer Park.