By Currents News and Mike Rizzzo
QUEENS VILLAGE — Almost a year to the date of his line of duty death, Det. Jonathan Diller’s widow, Stephanie, sat in Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village on March 9 for the annual NYPD Brooklyn-Queens Holy Name Society Mass. It was there, with a congregation of hundreds of NYPD uniformed officers, that she rose to a standing ovation to accept the society’s Sgt. Paul Hargrove Award in her husband’s honor and a $1,000 donation to the scholarship fund she’s established in Det. Diller’s name.
The award pays tribute to “extraordinary heroism,” Sgt. Michael Ciota, the society’s president, said in introducing Stephanie. In accepting the award and speaking to those in the church, Diller called her husband and Sgt. Hargrove “two shining lights for all” as men of faith, family, and dedication to their work in the NYPD. The Mass preceded the society’s annual Communion breakfast at nearby Antun’s Catering Hall. The Sgt. Paul Hargrove Award was instituted in 2024 and named for the NYPD veteran and longtime society member. Sgt. Hargrove posthumously received the honor last year after he succumbed to cancer on March 8, just days before that year’s breakfast. Det. Diller was killed 17 days later.
Although Diller never met Sgt. Hargrove, she feels a connection to him. “I understand he was a wonderful person,” she said just before the Mass began. “They both passed in March, and in a way, I feel like Paul probably welcomed Jonathan.” She is grateful for the support she receives from organizations like the Holy Name Society. “I was talking with Paul’s wife just before this,” she said. “People don’t realize how much it means to us to keep remembering our husbands, keep talking about them, to keep supporting us, to keep showing up. That is the best way to honor our husbands. It’s the spirit of our husbands living on.”
The society members’ connection as a family came up in speeches at the breakfast and in an interview, also conducted before the Mass began, with Msgr. Robert Romano, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Bensonhurst, the assistant chief of NYPD chaplain, and the society’s spiritual director. “Family of blood and family of blue,” he said, adding that the Holy Name Society is the bond between both. “These are Catholic police officers who live their faith.”
Sgt. Hargrove’s son Paul was among the Hargrove family members at the Mass and breakfast. “I think Jonathan exemplified what a true police officer was, which is what my father stood for,” he said. “As the first awardee after my father’s passing, it’s a tremendous honor for it to be Jonathan. I think if we continue to have people speak the way that Stephanie did about the importance of being Catholic and the connection to religion and the job, I think that’s very important.”
As Stephanie Diller looks to the future, she spoke of focusing on her young son Ryan, rooting her life in her faith, and doing for others. “Whenever I am in church, I always feel more connected to Jonathan. It’s just that extra layer of feeling like he’s with me,” she said. “Remembering him and living a life that he’s proud of, that honors him, that keeps his spirit in it, that’s really what I want to keep doing.”
“Helping people when I can, using the voice that I’ve unfortunately been given to help other families in a way that I know that Jonathan would want is basically how I’m going about things now,” she added.