JetBlue Airlines Offers Free Flights to Guyana-born NYPD Officer’s Funeral

JetBlue Airways says it will offer free flights for police officers who want to attend the funeral of slain New York Police Department Officer Randolph Holder.

The company says it is honored to help shuttle the officers wishing to pay tribute to a fallen comrade.

Holder will be buried in Georgetown next Friday.

JetBlue said it would offer free flights to police officers who wanted to attend. Jet Blue extended the same offer for the funerals of slain NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos who were killed in the line of duty last December.

Holder was shot in the head Tuesday evening as he responded to calls of shots fired and a bicycle stolen at gunpoint. Holder and his partner chased the suspect, who opened fire.

Police Commissioner William Bratton said at a news conference Wednesday that funeral arraignments for Officer Randolph Holder were still being finalized.

30-year-old Tyrone Howard was taken into custody after the shooting and is expected to be charged Wednesday. It isn’t clear whether he has a lawyer who could comment on the allegations.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the fatal shooting is another example of the growing crisis of gun violence.

Cuomo told reporters Wednesday that the slayings of police officers “has to stop.”

Holder, a native of Guyana, had five years on the job and worked in the anti-crime unit of PSA no. 5, a command that polices public housing developments in East Harlem and Harlem.

His father and his grandfather were both police officers here and Holder joined the NYPD after he moved to New York.

(Associated Press)