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DEC. 23, 2018, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
Farewell to a hero
Brooklyn mourns Bravest killed on Belt Parkway at Sunset Park funeral
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Hundreds of New York’s Bravest
gathered on Dec. 13 to bid farewell
to their colleague whom offi cials
suspect a man killed days before,
amid an apparent fi t of road rage
on the Belt Parkway that turned
fatal.
Family, friends, and fellow
fi refi ghters came out to Sunset
Park’s Leone Funeral Home to
honor to 33-year-old Faizal Coto
— a Ditmas Parker who served
with Coney Island’s Engine 245
— packing the venue to the brim
so they could pay their respects to
the hero who died while off-duty
on Dec. 9, according to a Fire Department
spokesman.
The Department’s chaplain
Rev. Ann Kansfi eld presided
over the funeral service, whose
attendees included Fire Department
Commissioner Daniel Nigro
and Coto’s family, including
his brother and fellow fi refi ghter
Gabe Coto, of Park Slope’s Engine
220.
Following the service, mourners
placed the deceased’s fl ag-covered
coffi n on top of the fi re truck
of his Engine 245, which joined
a motorcade that drove down
Fourth Avenue from 21st Street
to 25th Street, before taking the
Bravest to his fi nal resting place
at Green-Wood Cemetery, the Fire
Department spokesman said.
Days before the funeral, authorities
with New York’s Finest
and the United States Marshal’s
Fugitive Task Force caught up
with the 29-year-old Staten Islander
suspected of killing Coto
in New Jersey and apprehended
him on Dec. 10.
And on Dec. 18, District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez charged
Joseph Desmond with second-degree
murder for killing Coto.
“We allege that this defendant
viciously and senselessly
attacked a dedicated and beloved
city firefighter who was
committed to public service,”
Gonzalez said in an indictment.
“There is no place on the streets
of Brooklyn for such mindless
violence.”
The suspect’s and fi refi ghter’s
vehicles collided as each merged
onto the Gravesend-bound side of
the parkway, according to prosecutors,
who claimed both drivers
pulled over on the side of the road
near Exit Four at 14th Avenue and
GONE TOO SOON: (Clockwise from above) Mourners including hundreds of New York’s Bravest came out to grieve their fallen comrade, fi refi ghter Faizal Coto of
Coney Island’s Engine 245, at his funeral in Sunset Park on Dec. 13. A fi re truck transported Coto’s body, enclosed in a fl ag-draped coffi n, to his fi nal resting place at
Green-Wood Cemetery. A motorcade that included bagpipers joined the truck carrying Coto’s body in a funeral procession to the graveyard. Photos by Trey Pentecost
Bay Eighth Street after bumping
into each other.
A motorist who passed Coto
while traveling in the opposite direction
saw him in distress and
drove to the scene, where the witness
called 911, Gonzalez alleged.
Paramedics responding to the
911 call then arrived with offi cers
from the 62nd Precinct, and pronounced
Coto dead, according
to the top prosecutor, who said
the victim died from a fatal blow
to his left temple after the city’s
medical examiner previously pronounced
that Coto died from blunt
force trauma to the head.
The victim allegedly sustained
multiple skull fractures that left
him hemorrhaging in the attack,
prosecutors said.
Police and United States Marshals
identifi ed their suspect with
help from cameras along the Belt
Parkway, which captured the license
plate numbers on his Infi
niti sedan, according to Gonzalez.
Law-enforcement sources involved
in Desmond’s arrest previously
told this newspaper that
he is a gang member, and was
wanted for a separate parole violation
at the time authorities
cuffed him.
Supreme Court Justice Vincent
Del Giudice ordered the Staten Islander
be held without bail, and
he will return to court on March
1, the district attorney said.