Hundreds of family members, friends and police department colleagues gathered Wednesday to remember the 46-year-old detective killed when a wrong-way driver smashed head-on into his vehicle as he drove to work last week.
At Paul Duncan's funeral in Manhattan, NYPD officers stood shoulder to shoulder, honoring the well-respected and much-loved detective killed on the Sprain Brook Parkway near Greenburgh Friday.
Duncan, who lived in Westchester County, had gotten an early start to his job at the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau in Queens that morning, his wife said. Duncan died after police say Efren Moreano, of Yonkers, drove his 2013 Honda Civic the wrong way on the highway near Greenburgh and hit him.
Duncan was a 17-year veteran with the NYPD who had plans to retire later this year.
"He was a very remarkable man who loved his family that loved NYPD," former co-worker Latifa Reed said outside Duncan's funeral. "He had a great heart, would go out of his way for anybody."
A family friend said the service was somber. But Diana Bromfield, another family friend, said it was also celebratory.
"They're celebrating his life in addition to mourning," Bromfield said. "So in it's really a sad time for the family, but the best thing to do is celebrate his life and his contributions to the community."
Moreano, 20, is recovering from injuries he sustained in the crash, and he is expected to face charges once he is well enough to be taken into custody, authorities say. Authorities have not specified what charges he may face.
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The 4 a.m. crash backed up traffic on the highway for hours. Duncan's wife was among the drivers snarled in the traffic as she tried to take their 13-year-old daughter to school in New York City. She told NBC 4 New York it took her two hours to get to the city that morning and didn't know the traffic was from the wreck that killed her husband of more than 20 years.
Duncan has been described as an advocate for higher education. In lieu of flowers, his family asks mourns make donations to the United Negro College Fund in Duncan's memory.
