Cop killer named to one of Cuomo-ordered police advisory councils to 'reform policing'
Man who murdered 12-year NYPD veteran, father of four execution style was released from prison two years ago, doesn't know if victim's family 'would approve'
NYPD Officer Robert Walsh, murdered execution-style in 1981 by a young-punk-thug-wannabe now serving on one of Cuomo’s community groups seeking to “reimagine policing.” (Photo: NYPD Archives)
Richard Rivera was 16 in January 1981 when he and four others walked into the BVD Bar and Grill in the Maspeth section of Queens just after midnight with the intent to rob the place.
Officer Robert Walsh, 36, who had served on the force for 12 years, was at the bar wearing his cowboy hat after his shift, He, along with a fellow officer, had dropped in after their shift and were having a drink before Walsh headed home to his wife and four children. He was a highly decorated officer and had received 20 awards and commendations.
When Rivera and the others announced the robbery, Walsh stood, identified himself as a police officer and had his gun drawn when Rivera shot him in the shoulder. With Walsh lying on the floor, Rivera walked over to him, put the gun to his forehead, and pulled the trigger. Walsh died instantly.
“It was an execution,” said William J. Devine, NYPD First Deputy Police Commissioner in 1981. “The officer no longer was a threat to the men. He was given a death sentence for being a police officer.”
Rivera was arrested along with the others involved in the crime two days later. As the trigger man, Rivera was sentenced to 30-years-to-life and was paroled in 2019. He was married while in prison and is now home living his family life — something he took from Officer Walsh and his family in 1981.
Now the cop-killer sits on a panel for the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County in central New York state, about 240 miles from Queens, as part of its “Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative’’ created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year. The advisory groups were formed all around the state after Cuomo ordered municipalities to submit police-reform plans to the state by April 1 following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“I know people are going to be critical,’’ Rivera, now 56, said Monday when asked about the possible reaction to him sitting on the committee.
“I don’t know if [Walsh’s] family would find this acceptable,’’ he said. “I can’t control that. What I can control is the way I’ve been living my life.”
A cop killer sits on the Ithaca and Tompkins County ‘Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative,’ groups Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) ordered created in response to George Floyd’s death in Minnesota on Memorial Day, 2020. (Photo: John Keller/Ithaca Voice)
We can answer that question for him. They don’t care for it at all.
One of officer Walsh's son's abhors the decision to have Rivera play any role in the future of policing whatsoever, in Ithaca, Queens or anywhere else.
“We're completely shocked that the man who murdered my father is being trusted to create police reforms,: Robert Walsh Jr., 47, told The New York Post. “My father dedicated his life to serving and protecting New Yorkers. He should be the one serving on a panel to help ‘reimagine policing,’ but he'll never get that chance.'
It's a view that is shared by Pat Lynch, President of the Police Benevolent Association in New York City.
“It's outrageous and despicable,” the union chief said. '“Not only did this cop-killer get paroled, but now he gets a seat at the table to help dismantle a police department. Does anybody expect him to be fair and open-minded in his review? The entire process has trampled on the ideals that police officers like Robert Walsh upheld. It's the ultimate disrespect to his service and sacrifice.”
A progressive rag of a website called “The Appeal,” a champion for cop killers and other prisoners who should, in the opinion of ACV, never see the light of day again, paints Rivera as a paragon of virtue. According to them, since his release, Rivera has worked with a homeless charity that seeks to provide food and shelter to those in need.
While in prison, Rivera claims to have found his calling in social work and was a member of the Inmate Grievance Review Committee, a group that mediates disputes between prisoners and correctional staff. Most such bodies — though we admit to having no working knowledge of the committee Rivera served on — constantly take the side of the inmate, even when they are blatantly wrong.
Rivera also claims to have co-founded the Prisoners AIDS Counseling and Education Program, and allegedly helped establish the Hispanic Inmate Needs Task Force as well as a program for older prisoners known as Fifty PLUS, again according to The Appeal.
“I feel that I'm living my life in a way that I feel is for the betterment of the people around me,” he said. “I live my life in a way that honors and respects [Officer Walsh's] memory, advocating for people who can't advocate for themselves.”
Unfortunately, no one will ever know if Officer Walsh would concur with that self-assessment, because Rivera executed him on a barroom floor 40 years ago.