Valley Stream man laid to rest

Vincent Harrison, right, with his brother, Horace, in a recent photo. They lived together with their mother and Horace’s family in Valley Stream.

Courtesy Facebook

Fellow officers accompanied the casket of Vincent Harrison at Pinelawn Cemetery, in Farmingdale.

Courtesy Facebook

Harrison’s brother, Horace, center, and mother, Glenda, with the then 15-year-old Harrison.

Courtesy Facebook

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Fellow officers carried the casket of Vincent Harrison, 25, to his final resting place at Pinelawn Cemetery, in Farmingdale, on Tuesday. “Those who showed today to give him a proper send-off, for a young man who lived his life helping and serving others, I thank you all with my whole heart,” his older brother, Horace, posted on his Facebook page after the burial.

Harrison, a police officer with the 100th Precinct in Queens, was killed while off-duty on Feb. 28, when he was struck by a passing vehicle after getting out of his car on the New Jersey Turnpike after colliding with another vehicle. The driver who struck him stopped briefly, then drove away, according to New Jersey State Police. William Espinal-Mejia, 35, of Linden, N.J., turned himself in to authorities the following day and was held on $100,000 bail, police said.

In the days after the tragedy, relatives and friends visited the Valley Stream home that Harrison shared with his mother, Glenda, and brother, Horace, and Horace’s family. The brothers’ father died 20 years ago.

“No words,” Horace said. “It’s surreal.”

Harrison had been out with friends in New York City on the Saturday night before the accident. One of those friends left, then apparently had car trouble and called him for assistance, Glenda said. Harrison went to her aid, as was his nature, his mother said.

“He would have been on his way home,” she said, shaking her head. She held her hand to her mouth as she gazed across the room. “He would have been here.”

Police responded to the scene of the crash at 3 a.m. The driver involved in the initial collision stopped in the right center lane of the four-lane highway, and Harrison pulled onto the shoulder. He got out of his car and exchanged words with the other driver, police said, before Espinal-Mejia’s Infiniti EX35 struck him.

The other driver, Glenda said police told her, was a woman who had a child in her vehicle. Police said they were told that Harrison had drawn his service weapon before he was struck. They are investigating the claim, but Harrison’s mother and brother find that hard to believe.

“That wasn’t him,” said Glenda, holding a small canvas painting of a Batman scene that her son bought on his last night out. “That wasn’t the way he was.”