Rocco Parascandola, Molly Crane-Newman, Tina Moore New York Daily News
A mother who says her son was an NYPD cadet when he died responding to the 9/11 terror attacks called out the city’s top cop at police headquarters Monday and demanded that her son be recognized as a fallen hero.
“You are my NYPD, and my son was a member of your NYPD,” Talat Hamdani, 63, told Commissioner Bill Bratton at an annual pre-Ramadan breakfast for Muslims.
“He died saving his fellow Americans at the twin towers on September 11, 2001,” the mom (near right) told Bratton. “To this day, the NYPD has not acknowledged him officially as a cadet on the force of the NYPD.”
NYPD Cadet Mohammed Hamdani
Mohammad Hamdani, 23, died in the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. He wasn’t on the job, but his mom says the cadet and volunteer emergency medical technician would have run to Ground Zero to help. Now, she wants him to be recognized among other dead members of the NYPD.
Hamdani, born to Muslim parents from Pakistan, was initially the subject of leaks suggesting that he could be a suspect in the attacks. He was eventually given a funeral with full police honors in April 2002, a month after his remains were found in the rubble, and he was praised by then-Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Hamdani’s name is displayed at the September 11 Memorial & Museum, but he’s not listed among the NYPD’s dead. An NYPD source said Mohammad hadn’t been on the payroll since July 2001, two months before terrorists flew two jets into the twin towers.
His mom says she only wants her son to receive the respect he deserves.
“I am still fighting for justice,” she told Bratton. “At his funeral, Commissioner Kelly said we don’t know how many lives he saved, and Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg said he ran toward the burning towers when everyone was running away from it.”
She wants the NYPD to “acknowledge the sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice of my child, 13½ years ago. He gave his life. He was a cadet.”
Bratton said he “was not familiar” and dispatched a staffer to help her.
Hamdani said she wrote two letters to the NYPD. In a return letter, former Police Deputy Commissioner of Personnel Arnold Wechsler acknowledged Hamdani had “a great desire to serve people.”
A letter dated Oct. 31, 2002, on Police Cadet Corps stationery and signed by Cadet Corps commander Capt. Odette Janavel confirmed that “Mohammad Salman Hamdani was employed by the New York City Police Department as a civilian police cadet from July 24, 1998, up through the time of his death on September 11, 2001.”
