Week 2 - NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos saw streets as his ministry

Rafael Ramos was an unusual cop.

He saw the streets of New York as his ministry.

In fact, he was just hours away from becoming a lay chaplain and graduating from a community-crisis chaplaincy program before he and fellow New York police Officer Wenjian Liu were gunned down in their patrol car Saturday in Brooklyn.

The gunman in the two officers' killing, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, was found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds at a subway station immediately after the slayings.

Services for Liu are pending. On Friday, a police honor guard took Ramos' casket into Christ Tabernacle in Glendale, New York, where an afternoon wake was being held. The visitation will be followed by a memorial service at 7 p.m. ET and a funeral service Saturday morning.

Some 25,000 police officers from around the country are expected to attend the funeral, according to the New York Police Department. JetBlue told CNN it has arranged for approximately 670 law enforcement officers to travel to New York for free.

Charities offer help to families of slain officers

Speakers at the funeral will include Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Bill De Blasio and NYPD Commissioner William Bratton.

Ramos, 40, enjoyed the spiritual dimension to life and work.

"He told me that his job even with the NYPD, he felt he was doing God's work," the Rev. Marcos Miranda, president of the New York State Chaplain Task Force, toldArise America on YouTube.

"He felt that he was protecting and serving his community and that was a sort of a ministry for him. And I totally agreed with him," Marcos said. "He said this type of ministry, the chaplaincy, he could see himself doing this in the future as a full-time ministry after he retired from the NYPD."

Marcos heads an organization that runs the 10-week course for lay chaplaincy, which Ramos completed, the minister said.

Source:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/25/us/nypd-officer-rafael-ramos-services/index.html