Officer of the Week – Police Officer John W. Perry
November 6, 2009 by Kim
Filed under Officer of the Week
Remember September 11, 2001
Angels Among Us
Police Officer John W. Perry
Shield 3266
40 Precinct
(recovered)
2/7/2002
by Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
November 5, 2009
Police Officer John W. Perry
Shield 3266
40 Precinct
(recovered)
John Perry knew he had only one life to live, and so he immersed himself in many.
He was a New York City police officer, a lawyer, an actor, a linguist, an active libertarian, a social worker helping abused children, a philosopher searching for his religion, and a softhearted soul who opened his wallet and his home to near strangers.
“He was the kind of person who enjoyed life,” said his mother, Patricia Perry of Seaford. “He was a libertarian who thought some rules weren’t necessary. Whatever he believed in, he followed.”
Perry, 38, was last seen helping a woman out of a trade center tower when it collapsed on Sept. 11. His original mission that morning had been to turn in his badge, file his retirement papers and embark on a new career. Instead, he retrieved the badge and rushed off with fellow officers to help evacuate people from the towers.
“Apparently John was too slow carrying this woman,” said Arnold Wachtel, Perry’s close friend. “But knowing John, he would never leave that lady unattended. That was just like him to help people.”
Perry’s generosity was boundless. His two-bedroom apartment in a public housing complex near Lincoln Center was known as a free bed and breakfast. Vladimir Azbel, a longtime friend, said he once called Perry because he had $1,700 in parking tickets. “He said, ‘Yeah, don’t worry. Just don’t get anymore tickets,'” Azbel said. “Later on I found out that he just paid them.”
Perry was diagnosed with a learning disability in the first grade and only learned to tie his shoes and read by the age of 9. But he overcame those difficulties. His love affair with learning foreign languages was sparked in the eighth grade when he began studying French.
He was outgoing, unafraid to approach a native speaker and attempt to speak the language, said his mother. The list of languages he spoke included Spanish, Swedish, Russian and Portuguese.
Perry studied law at New York University Law School, practiced immigration law with a friend after graduating and then went to the police academy. Eventually, he took a position investigating and disciplining police officers’ minor infractions.
In his spare time, Perry took parts as an extra in movies and TV shows such as “NYPD Blue.” He volunteered as an investigator for the Kings County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He also was a board member of the Nassau Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“At board meetings … he sort of out libertarianed us,” executive director Barbara Bernstein said. “If someone thought it wasn’t the right timing or [a case] wasn’t winnable, he was an idealist. He made us justify what we were doing.”
Perry also had explored many religions, attending various services and reading about each extensively. He was converting to Judaism and often attended the Actors Temple in midtown Manhattan, where Rabbi Noach Valley talked about Perry for his Rosh Hashanah sermon days after the tragedy. “He was never bored, because his life was brim-full of holy service to others,” Noach told his congregations. “Here was a onetime atheist living a life of kedushah, of closeness to God.”
– New York Newsday Victim Database 2/7/2002
Source: NYP Angels